


Exit Light

by BadonKaDank



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Allies Jack Frost and Pitch Black (Guardians of Childhood), Banter, Blood, Body Horror, Child Death, Creatures, Developing Friendships, Gen, Guilt, Halloween Special, Horror Elements, Kozmotis Pitchner is Pitch's voice of reason, Male Friendship, Pitch and Jack work together, Sarcasm, Voilence, spooky vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadonKaDank/pseuds/BadonKaDank
Summary: When a mysterious entity appears in Burgess and begins taking children it is up to Jack and the rest of the Guardians to find out what it is and how to stop it... with the help of a certain recently-defeated Nightmare King.
Relationships: Jack Frost & Guardians of Childhood, Jack Frost & Pitch Black, Jack Frost & Wind (Guardians of Childhood)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween y'all!

The sun’s glow cast a warm light as it crawled below the horizon. It was the kind of warm that made one want to carve pumpkins and sip on cider while cuddling up under a blanket on the porch. The night air held a chill to it, the kind that whispered promises of fallen leaves and cosy pillow forts, cuddles. Everything was perfect and as autumn should be. Which meant it was the perfect time for catching frogs.

He’d planned it as a surprise for his little brother, who’d been begging their stepmom for a pet. She’d said they couldn’t afford one but that hadn’t bothered Lewis because he was going to find them one for free. And then Kevin would be so happy! He’d been picturing the look on his brother’s fat little face since the idea had first popped into his head, and now that he’d eaten dinner he could go.

That had been the plan.

Then the sun had set over the hill and the once calm and familiar forest had grown darker, deeper. The trees casted shadows far too long, and the chill in the air became fiercer, sinister. Suddenly it wasn’t whispering good-time promises at all, but threats. Warnings.

He’d shaken his head, pulled his puffy vest closer, and pushed onward. After all, ten year olds didn’t run away from anything. Kevin was the little kid not him. He’d been able to hear frogs croaking in the distance, too, so obviously he couldn’t turn back. Besides, it wasn’t as though there could be any monsters there to get him-- he’d heard the other kids in school talking about how the Boogeyman had been defeated and there was no longer anything to fear.

That’s what he’d told himself in his head and aloud as he’d trudged further into the ever darkening woods, gripping his flashlight to the point his knuckles whitened. There were no monsters. There were no creeps. He was just being a big baby. 

That thought made him huff and he lifted his chin in defiance of himself. He was not a baby. He was a big kid-- even if some of the others at school made fun of him for believing in Santa Claus and the like. They didn’t know anything though, so it didn’t matter what they said was and wasn’t real. All those people did exist and he knew it. He wasn’t going to be scared, though. __

_ There’s nothing to be scared of.  _

He passed a broken fort that creaked on a rotting foundation. He flinched when the wind rustled through the branches and made them scrape against the abandoned structure. 

_ No monsters.  _

He’d tiptoed around a weirdly dark patch of dirt and swallowed hard when it shifted in the corner of his eye.

_ Nothing in the shadows. _

A frog croaked somewhere close by and he yelped.

It was a shrill noise that had him clamping a hand over his mouth out of embarrassment. He chased the frog sound with a laugh as he squatted and used his flashlight to search for the creature. The quiet that settled over the forest after that was unnatural. He shook it off. 

And then the lumbering sound of footsteps reached his ears.

Lewis leapt up from his crouch and bit his lip as he turned his head back and forth in search of the thing responsible for the noise. A soft growl came to him in the wind and he froze. It wasn’t a monster. He told himself that as he pried his eyes back open and brought the flashlight closer to his chest with hands shaking. Monsters didn’t exist in these woods. It had always been safe to go frog hunting before-- and his neighbors had gone camping more than once around here, too. It wasn’t a monster. It was probably just a deer.

When he turned around to face the animal and prove to himself that there was no reason to be afraid, his body went cold. In fact, as he stared up at bulging gold eyes, all of the air was suddenly colder. He could see his breath in the faint flashlight glow, and something was crawling up his throat. It felt a lot like a scream, lodged in his neck and cutting off his oxygen. Everything was frozen and silent.

And then it wasn’t.

The monster lurched, oily black appendages reaching out of the dark to swipe at him. The barrier in his throat vanished and Lewis screamed as loud as he could. He whirled around, pumping his legs as hard as possible to get away from the thing that seemed to eat all the light in the area. The steady thrum of pursuit following close behind seemed to be the only noise around for miles. Each step echoed to match the pounding of his heart and drove a stake of dread through him.

“Go away!” He shrieked while hopping over a log. 

Tears cut icy tracks down his face and Lewis screamed around a sob when his foot caught on a tree root. The grip on his flashlight was lost when he broke his fall and pain laced up his hands and knees. He could feel blood oozing out of cuts there. The sting meant nothing to him, though-- not when he could feel breath down his neck, simultaneously frigid and sweltering. The sensation distracted him from feeling something wrapping around his ankle until it was too late. 

“No!” The sob bubbled up in his throat when he was dragged through the underbrush. Dirt mixed with tears and he coughed when musky earth found a way into his mouth as he writhed in the soil against the sticky hold. He kicked while his hands scrambled for purchase against the forest floor. 

_ “Let me go! _ ”

A gurgling sound was his only reward for all his efforts to escape and Lewis whimpered when he realized the noise was like something straight out of one of the horror movies his dad told him he shouldn’t watch but he did anyway. Like blood bubbling up someone’s throat. The thought made him struggle harder even as his chest heaved with suffocating sobs. He could barely see in the waning light already, but the water making his vision swim doubled the intensity of his terror when the creature turned him onto his back and he found he couldn’t see much of anything. Even through the blur, though, he could make out those terrible pulsating eyes that seemed one gentle poke away from bursting.

“Please,” he pleaded with his hoarse voice, “please let me go… I wanna go home!”

A sickening crack was the only answer he received, and Lewis starred on with mounting horror as the creature’s silhouette elongated and its jaw fell open with a wet plop. Rows and rows of needle-thin teeth glinted off the golden glow of its mangled face. Not a second later, the monster lunged.


	2. II

The Wind was quiet as he shot through the skies. He wouldn’t have questioned that with concern a week ago, but now it was less than good when It had nothing to say. Hearing her soft whispers would have been welcome, as it would mean there was a new development and a way to find the demon that had been harming the children. There had been nothing from her, though. Not for quite some time, and that fact turned his stomach into a sticky pit of tar. He really wished the saying “no news is good news” could’ve applied to the situation at hand. 

As it was, the Guardian summons he followed to the Pole left a bitter taste in the back of his throat. As much as he wanted to believe North had good news for them, he also had the distinct feeling he didn’t. Even if only eight days had passed since they first caught what was going on, to him it felt like ages since their investigation had begun. And the entire time, there had been zero instances of good anything. The first time a new development had come their way had certainly been nothing close to good.

A shudder still ran through him every time he thought about the blood-soaked ground of that horror forest. 

Jack dropped through the skylight of the Pole that North had installed for him and landed with a heavy thud. A glance from Phil made Jack aware of just how visibly off his mood must have been, because the Yetis usually didn’t mind when he wasn’t being his rambunctious, impetuous self-- they preferred him when he was calm. Now, though, they just looked worried that he wasn’t tumbling into the their home with somersaults and snow flurries. Of course, they also understood now. They hadn’t when he’d first burst into the Pole and activated the Aurora Borealis-- nobody had.

It still horrified Jack, the knowledge that he’d been the only one to notice something was wrong. Perhaps it made sense, though, seeing as he had so few believers and the other Guardians had millions. Of course he would’ve been the one to notice the disappearing Lights. He’d tried to not get upset with any of them over that, but it was easier said than done. Whenever he wondered how long it would’ve taken one of them to notice so many lights disappearing from one spot if he’d stayed silent, he felt nauseous.

“Jack? What’s wrong?”

Tooth’s voice dragged him away from his thoughts. Judging by the look on her and everyone else’s faces, they’d been waiting around for him for awhile. He didn’t want to get into a discussion about what had held him --they didn’t need to know how deep his fear for the children ran-- so Jack sent a tired smile her way, making sure to show teeth. It was the easiest way to distract her from the rest of his face when he wasn’t in the mood to talk.

“Nothin’ much. Kinda tired.”

“You an’ me both, mate.” Bunny turned to the man who’d called them in the first place. “North?”

“Yes, yes,” North nodded while weaving between the four of them, picking up a book from the desk Jack had settled on. “Manny has spoken to me, and--”

“He didn’t wait for the rest of us?”

“Was urgent.” 

Jack frowned and leaned against his staff while North stared at whatever was written in his book and went on to explain what he’d been told. On some level he appreciated the fact that Moon was taking some action, but on another, he was wondering why he hadn’t contacted one of them sooner. Children were hurt… they could be-- were-- dying… and he’d waited a week. North had told him once that the Man in the Moon worked in mysterious ways, but everything he did had a purpose. He couldn’t see the purpose in his waiting. He refrained from glaring at the moonbeam coming through the window.

“... Children in great danger. He does not know what kind, but is dark, evil aura.”

He stopped there, but the way he glanced from the book to their faces was a dead giveaway to the fact that there was more to be said. Jack raised a brow and opened his mouth to ask where the rest was, but Bunny beat him to it.

“Yeah, we knew all that. What does he want us ta do about it?”

“Well, eh…” North tapped his fingers anxiously against the book’s cover and an impatient annoyance overtook Jack. Before giving the action much thought, he darted over to where the Guardian had started pacing and snatched the leatherbound artifact from his hands. The man yelped while Bunny and Tooth tried chiding him, but Jack paid them no attention as his attention was fixed on the picture that had been sketched out beneath North’s written interpretation of Moon’s message.

The silhouette he’d come to recognise as his own stood parallel to a much taller, eerily familiar black shape. That fact would have been alarming enough on its own, but was made worse by the fact that instead of malice between the two figures, there were hands clasped in a clear show of truce. He didn’t even need to read North’s neat “Manny thinks we need Pitch’s help” to understand what he was seeing. 

He wasn't sure how he felt about that, so he was left blinking owlishly and shooting North a crooked, confused smile. “Pitch? Seriously?” 

“What? Gimme that!” Bunny pulled the book from his grasp before he could think to hand it over and Jack watched the same disbelief he felt cross the Pooka’s face. He could appreciate the look, if only because he was still trying to figure out what Moon was getting at with telling them they needed Pitch. After all, he’d been the first person of their group to suspect the Boogeyman at the beginning, but Sandy had been quick to assure him that there was no way Pitch had regained enough strength to pull off something like that so soon.

“Look, I don’t normally question the big guy, but is he sick or somethin’? Why would he ever think havin’ Pitch around could be any sorta help?”

“Manny is not so clear,” North huffed, “you know this.”

Tooth said something in reply to that, but Jack didn’t catch it because tugging on his sleeve distracted him. Sandy looked exceedingly frustrated and he wondered how long the little guy had been trying to get their attention. 

“Sorry, Sandy,” he sighed before slamming his staff down to silence the others with a cold gust of wind.

“Jack!”

“Oi, what-- oh. What, Sandy?”

A flurry of images passed over his head and Jack tried to keep up, but he hadn’t been able to pick up this form of speech as fast as he’d hoped to. He did catch an image of Pitch and some kind of book with a symbol on its cover that Jack felt like he really should’ve been able to identify.

The others seemed to get it, at least, and North let loose a triumphant noise as he clapped his hands together. 

“Sandy is right. Pitch knows of all dark creatures, spirit and monster alike. Could be valuable.”

That was a fact about the Boogeyman Jack hadn’t known and he had to resist the urge to run off right there and then to find him and drag the information out of him. He didn’t know how he’d get him talking, because he got the distinct feeling that Pitch might still be bitter about having his butt kicked and wouldn’t be too forthcoming with anything. Pitch didn’t seem the type to share anything, ever, actually. Unless there was something in it for him. Jack was at least familiar with those kinds of people, so he felt sure of himself when he poked back into the conversation.

“He’s not just gonna help us out of the goodness of his own heart.”

“Yes,” North agreed, “which is where I was heading. Manny… wants us to give Pitch back October.”

Whatever story behind that Jack wanted to hear wouldn’t been drowned out by the sudden chorus of indignation and “absolutely not”s of the Guardian’s surrounding him. He had no idea what was so special about the particular month, but seeing as it was already over halfway over, he couldn’t see why they were all so upset. Although, he didn’t quite understand what giving Pitch October back meant either. It probably wasn’t anything good, if they were having to give it back. From what he’d gathered, they’d had to take a lot of things from Pitch in order to keep him in check. The guy was really creative with whatever he got his hands on, apparently. If North ever let him into every room in his workshop someday, Jack wouldn’t have been shocked if he were to stumble onto a spot full of “Pitch’s ‘Off Limits’ Toys.” 

Although, if it was, in fact, the literal month itself they were returning, then he was at a loss as to the significance of that. 

“What’s so special about October?”

“Oh, you don’t know.” Tooth realized with a start. “Jack… there are certain times of the year when certain spirits are much stronger than usual. For the Leprechaun, it’s March, for Bunny, it’s April, for North it’s December-- and so on. For Pitch… it’s October.”

“And,” Bunny added, “Halloween night is when he’s at his absolute strongest, with or without believers. Everyone is easier to scare on Halloween.” 

“Believers just make him all the worse.” North finished before Jack could ask about it and he closed his mouth, accepting the explanation. 

That all made sense. He wanted to know how exactly Manny kept Pitch from gaining his strength in October, but it wasn’t the most important factor at the moment-- and he sort of assumed it had something to do with the power of ownership or something like that. Either way, he could see why they were all so opposed to returning that kind of power to him. On the other hand, though, they would be doing so in order to gain his assistance in saving the children. So why the hesitation? If it had been up to him, none of this would have needed to be debated.

“Okay, I get that’s dangerous and all, but… we don’t really have a choice, do we? We need him. I mean, I’m no expert on Guardianship, but aren’t we supposed to do everything we can to protect kids?”

The fact that they all wore varying levels of apprehension on their faces wasn’t a comforting one for him, but Jack shoved that aside for favor of listening to what North was saying.

“Of course, Jack. We must be careful, though. Pitch can be very… resourceful.”

“Give the drongo an inch and he’ll take a mile,” Bunny muttered. 

“Exactly.”

They’d seen what he could do, to a worse extent than he, but Jack still wasn’t sure if he could follow their logic on the issue. After all, if they were expecting Pitch to try something funny, then it wasn’t like there would be any surprises. Even if they said they were, Jack had trouble believing they were fully considering the stakes. He couldn’t ward of his frown and had to take a deep breath to keep from immediately snapping at them. What did any of that matter? If they knew all of that about Pitch, then they would be able to prepare for it, or even prevent it. As he saw it, they had no choice.

“Question,” Tooth piped up from between her muttered orders to her fairies, “why was Jack the only one Manny showed with Pitch? Is he saying Jack should be the one to reach out to him?”

The image North had drawn came back to the forefront of his mind and Jack’s frown deepened. He hadn’t even considered that. But then… he also hadn’t questioned it, because he’d already assumed he would be the one to go. The others had been too busy to fully throw themselves into the investigation like he had-- especially North, with Christmas looming ever closer. There was also the fact that between the five of them, Pitch seemed inclined to attack him on sight the least. And it wasn’t like he held any sort of animosity towards the Boogeyman, either. Not like the others. Distrust, wariness, and annoyance, sure, those were warranted. But he didn’t hate the guy. 

“Jack and him working together… I dunno, mate, doesn’t that sound like a bad idea?”

“Hey!” Jack snapped, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The memory of Easter from the beginning of the year still held fresh, bitter pain for him, and the fact that Bunny so callously brought it up hurt. He thought he’d proven himself enough for them… but Bunny still seemed to be distrusting. Or maybe he was just being sensitive, but...

“Jack.” Tooth’s hand rested on his shoulder to calm him, “You remember what happened the last time he was near you. He hurt you.”

He resisted the urge to shrug her off as he shot a short retort. “I got him back for that. Besides, I’m not dumb enough to let him touch anything of mine again. Also, he’s got like, zero leverage.”

“I know, Jack, but he’s… well, he’s-- yes, thank you, Sandy-- a leopard can’t change its spots.”

A snort came up as he tried to picture Pitch as the big cat Sandy still had hovering over his head. “A leopard? I think he’s more of a snake myself-- or one of those big spiders that screams and chases you when you get too close?”

“Either way,” Bunny interrupted, “he can’t be trusted.”

“I’m not saying we trust him. Didn’t Manny say we should bribe him?”

“Still risky.”

“Of course it’s risky-- it’s Pitch. But…I think we should at least give him a chance to do the right thing.”

He sighed, frustration building in his chest. A plan that could help save the children wasn’t something he’d ever thought they’d have to debate so strongly over. There was also some part of him that was upset just because they were the ones chosen by the Moon to protect people, yet they refused to even consider a path that would put them anywhere near the Boogeyman. He couldn’t understand it-- it was as if the Pitch they knew, and the Pitch he’d met were two different people who happened to cross similar paths. 

The Pitch he’d seen in Antarctica certainly would’ve at least considered Manny’s proposal. Jack knew he’d been doing his best to manipulate him, but there had also been truth to his words. He may have been a good liar, but nobody could fake that kind of pain-- the type that was borne from too many years spent alone. There was no way he could trust someone who would use that kind of pain in order to try and turn someone to their side, but there was plenty of room for understanding. 

None of them got that, though.

“He won’t.”

The cold surety behind Bunny’s statement made him bristle. “You don’t know that! None of you do! It’s not like you know what it’s like.”

“What ‘what’s’ like, Jack?”

It was North who spoke, but it was Sandy who had his attention. Jack stared at the warm hand rubbing soothing lines up and down his arm and then at the small smile the Guardian was giving him. It was an earnest, encouraging look, and as much as he wanted to clamp up and leave the outburst in the air for interpretation, Jack found himself relaxing and answering.

“I-- Pitch and me... we both know what it’s like to be alone… really alone.”

He didn’t look up. He didn’t need to see the guilty looks on their faces to know they were still disappointed in themselves for letting him go so long on his own. He didn’t feel like being dragged into a pity party about himself, though --not now and not ever-- so he forced them back on track.

“Look, I’m not saying I trust it, or that I even like it, but… we’ve already tried everything we can think of. I’m willing to try  _ anything _ if it means the kids’ll be safe-- plus it’s Manny’s idea. I think we should do it. At least let me talk to Pitch before saying no.”

The long moment of silence that followed was welcome, and as the other Guardians shared glances, Jack took a moment to get his runaway emotions back under control. Shame over shouting at them colored his cheeks and he was glad nobody was paying him any attention for the time being. He hadn’t meant to get so defensive. He decided to place his reasons for that on the fact that he couldn’t shake the anxiety that followed him like an oppressive cloud every time he left Burgess and set his nerves on edge.

“Jack.”

He startled when North’s hand settled on his shoulder to get his attention, whirling around a bit too fast to be considered casual. If the man caught it, he said nothing, at least. And his next words were enough to bury any lingering embarrassment Jack might have felt over being so jumpy.

“Promise us you will call at first sign of trouble.”

“That sounds a lot like a ‘yeah, Jack, go harass Pitch, you have our blessing.’” 

“Jack.”

He snorted. “Of course I’ll call you guys if he gets rowdy.”

“Alright. We trust you.”

The statement sent a warmth through his bloodstream and Jack beamed at the four while taking to the air. Having their confidence meant the world to him, but he would dwell on that good feeling later. Now, he had a Boogeyman to find and children to save.

* * *

Finding the new entrance to Pitch’s lair proved much easier than he’d been anticipating. Although, when the spirit of Luck got involved in search efforts, everything was easier. Most got frustrated with the Leprechaun too soon and were quick to state that he was a difficult spirit, but Jack had never found that to be the case. In fact, of all the creatures he’d come across, Patrick was the one he got on with the easiest. They were kindred spirits.

Although he could’ve done without the rhymes and riddles the giant was fond of. 

_ Rejection, Sorrow, Hate, Betrayal _

_ Each a trail for birthing lairs _

_ Cold and Darkness form as one _

_ There you’ll find the Fearling Son _

It was part of the process-- who the guy was. Patrick loved games almost as much as he loved picking fights with the Fae. That didn’t make deciphering anything he said any easier. And it had taken quite some time to find the meaning of his words. However, Jack imagined searching on his own would have wasted twice as long, so he couldn’t complain. Patrick had still guffawed cruelly over his frustration in figuring out the clue, which apparently _ “weren’t even that hard, ya cabbage!” _

Jack didn’t see what was so simple about the cryptic message. How should he have known that he’d been talking about Antarctica so soon after hearing it when the only real hint had been the whole “cold and dark” part? Even that had been a stretch. Still Patrick had seemed pretty pleased with himself and confirmed that Pitch had, indeed, holed himself up there.

_ “Pitch be dramatic, laddie. Ee prolly settled ‘imself cuz a massive tantrum’as thrown there.” _

Jack had decided not to share the complete story of his probable reasons with the Leprechaun who already seemed to know more about the area than he should’ve. He hadn’t even told the Guardians about the whole of their fight, and the fact that Pitch had said some… painfully on the nose things. It made sense, in a convoluted sort of way, that Pitch would pick the place to settle where he’d found Jack feeling the most alone, and where he’d failed to sway him despite all the hurt the Guardian’s distrust had caused him. It struck him as odd, though, that Patrick had added “betrayal” to the list of reasons Pitch would settle down somewhere. He supposed Pitch’s lying to him and breaking his staff could’ve fit that criteria… but it hadn’t felt like betrayal-- it wasn’t like he’d truly expected him to be true to his word. But the notion that the Boogeyman had felt betrayed seemed equally ridiculous.

He shook his head in an attempt to rid those thoughts from his mind. It was not the time to start considering feeling overly sympathetic towards him. After all, Pitch had done plenty of bad to outweigh the pity. 

Instead, he cast his thoughts to a different issue as he flew: how was he going to approach Pitch?

* * *

There was something to be said about the drama in what Pitch did. He decided that as he rounded the towering structure he and the Boogeyman had created and found a gaping hole at the base. He could so no other reason he would have decided to settle somewhere attached to unpleasant memories, if not to be dramatic.

It did very little to soothe his nerves, thinking like that, but he liked to pretend it took some of the edge off as he landed at the lip of the hole. Staring down, the tunnel appeared impossibly dark and foreboding, like a predator feigning a yawn while it waited to snap up unsuspecting prey. It struck him that he hadn’t been anywhere close to Pitch’s lair since Easter. The memories attached to that encounter were not ones he wanted to revisit and Jack shoved them back. He gripped his staff tighter and took a deep breath. It wouldn’t be the same as last time. He was different now-- stronger. He wasn’t the scared, confused boy who’d stumbled into the Boogeyman’s grasp anymore. He knew who he was and he wouldn’t fall for whatever tricks were waiting for him.

Holding his staff to his chest, Jack released the breath slowly and stepped forward, letting the darkness swallow him whole. The fall felt longer than it had the first time he’d entered the lair, but when his feet hit stone, familiarity returned. The world before hadn’t changed since last he saw it, though it was missing mounds of teeth boxes and fairies. The cages still hung from their chains, empty and eerie, silent sentinels awaiting the next time their master had use for them. The globe still sat on its dias, thankfully much brighter than last he’d seen it. Jack didn’t know why Pitch would keep something that served as a constant reminder to his defeat, but also didn’t let himself fixate on that curiosity. The whole of the cavernous, twisting realm still left him dizzy and with a stale taste in his mouth. He didn’t want to be there longer than necessary.

Holding his staff close, using the faint glow to light any suspicious patches of dark, he walked around the main area, prepared for a sneak attack from the Boogeyman or one of his Nightmares-- if he still had any of them. When none immediately came, he rolled his eyes and called for Pitch to come out. As careful as he wanted to be, he also couldn’t risk delay.

“I love what you’ve done with the place.”

He expected the man to answer, but that didn’t stop him from nearly jumping out of his skin when the drawl of Pitch’s voice came from behind. “What do you want, Frost? Have you come to gloat?”

“Nah, not really my style.” Jack shrugged as he whirled around to pinpoint the source of the voice. “Can’t a guy stop by to see his sworn enemy?”

“Perhaps he does not want to see you.” The location he spoke from changed and Jack turned warily towards the bridge. Pitch still sounded bored enough, but there was a slight edge to his tone. “I suppose because you have a handful of believers, you think you’re special.”

“Um, sorry, between the two of us, which one do kids actually want to see?”

It felt wrong, going after a subject that he himself was still sore about, but he couldn’t allow Pitch to get under his skin again. If that meant knocking him down a peg, then that was something he resigned himself to. Still, it made his skin crawl.

Or maybe that was the sensation of something hovering just above his neck.

Jack swung his staff only to meet no resistance and stumble. A dark chuckle echoed from everywhere at once and he glared at the nearest patch of shadows.

“Charming,” was Pitch’s curt, sarcasm-saturated retort. “Have you been taking lessons from the Rabbit on how to  _ kick  _ someone when they’re down?”

Something hit him in the back of the knees hard enough to make them buckle. The floor was coated in ice before he could think to do anything else. No curses or sounds of surprise indicated that Pitch had been tripped up by it. That fact frustrated him as much as the reminder of the jabs Bunny’s used to aim at him.

“Knock it off, Pitch!”

“Or what?” He hissed, “You’ll take away  _ my _ believers?”

The shadows around him writhed and Jack kept a wary eye on them. There was still no sign of Pitch, but he’d at least been riled, which meant the odds of him getting angry enough to show himself were increasing. He resisted the cruel urge to mention that he’d sort of been there and done that already. Though what went unsaid clearly did not go unheard, if Pitch was indeed referring to his lack of Light space on the globe.

“You have no power, here, Frost,” he continued and Jack couldn’t help but smirk.

“Well, seeing as you’re not doing much but slinking around the shadows, I’d say it’s safe to say you don’t, either.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find these months of solitude have done  _ wonders _ for my strength.”

Jack clamped down on a yelp when the man’s voice sounded beside his ear. Instead he let frost slither from his staff and up his hands in visible warning to the Boogeyman. He didn’t want to fight, but if Pitch didn’t watch himself, then a fight was what he would get. 

“And if you’re not careful, you’ll see what being a Guardian has done for  _ mine _ .”

“Strong talk. But you forget, Jack, I know your fears.”

That one was closer, and if he wasn’t wrong, it came through as less of an echo and more a solid voice. With a solid point of origin.

“I remember,” he snorted, turning slowly, “My ‘greatest’ fears, right?”

“Indeed.”

Pitch peeled away from the darkness by the globe, metallic eyes glinting in the cavern’s dim light. He was every inch the imposing figure he remembered, the way he moved as he turned to face him, like oil cutting through water, reminded Jack that even weakened, he was still dangerous. The phantom sensation of free falling twisted his gut uncomfortably when Pitch’s gaze met his and Jack hopped into the air before the Boogeyman could consider opening a shadow pit that would throw him somewhere in the lair he didn’t want to be.

He didn’t have time for games, or further hashing out of grudges. Time was of the essence and he’d already wasted enough of it getting Pitch to show himself. At least he knew the elder entity could still sense his fear and put a name to it, because that would save him from needing to explain the entirety of the problem.

“Why are you here, Frost?” 

“I think you know why.”

“Ah, yes, the children.” Pitch sneered at the globe, no doubt eyeing Burgess, before smoothing his expression into something calmer. “Their fear is delicious, but I regret to inform you it’s not my doing this time.”

“I know.”

“You…” Jack couldn’t tell if the flash of emotion on Pitch’s face was disbelief, offense, or both, but he did know it morphed into bared teeth and a scoffed reply. “Then I cannot fathom why a few missing brats have brought you  _ here. _ ”

There it was: the opening to discuss his reasons for being there. He paused, considering how he wanted to start. Pitch was a melodramatic enigma, and the last thing he wanted was to be attacked before he could say his piece. He decided it would be best to lead with the reward and hope it caught him off guard enough that he’d have time to finish.

“We wanna give you back Halloween.”

If Pitch hadn’t been paying him undivided attention before, he was now, and Jack gave himself a pat on the back for making the correct call.

“You what?”

“Well, all of October, but since there’s only a week left, I’m just going with Halloween. It’s the only day worth anything anyway.”

Pitch regarded him silently for a beat before the shrieking sound of fingernails dragging against the globe echoed against the cavern walls. Jack winced, but didn’t move when Pitch took a few hostile steps closer to him.

“Under what conditions.”

“You help me find the thing hurting kids.”

Whether the darkening of the area was real or not, Jack wasn’t sure, but it certainly seemed dimmer the moment the words left his mouth.

“Oh,” Pitch started, deceptively calm, “I see. The ultimatum.” 

Jack went to continue, explaining the rest of the potential plan, but Pitch cut him off before he could really begin. 

“Is this the Guardians’ new plan to keep the Boogeyman on a leash?! Bribe him and he’ll stoop so low as to do something like help them?! Do I look like I can be so easily bought, Frost? I am the Boogeyman! I am fear itself-- you can never defeat me, nor can you contain me, and you certainly cannot  **_buy_ ** _ me! _ ”

With every word, his volume increased, until the air around them roared with him. Jack just barely resisted the urge to cover his ears. Pitch’s rant wasn’t done, still, though, even if he had quieted to a steady growl. He groaned inwardly, done listening to his irrational reaction.

“Whose idea was it? The Fairy’s? Sandman’s? Or better yet, North-- I certainly hope it was him. He could stand to be knocked down a peg or two--”

“Man in the Moon’s idea, actually. Everyone else was against it.”

“Of course it was! My Old Friend tells you people to jump, and like the good Guardians you are, you ask how high. Typical.”

Jack frowned at the sallow visage, wary of his hateful glare and coiled posture. One hastily placed word could set him off further, and that was not something they had time for. Night would be falling in Burgess soon, and he had to be around to ward off whatever vengeful creature had taken up residence. Tip-toeing around the Boogeyman would be a surefire way to enrage him, however, so Jack took the opposite approach.

“Yeesh, you make it seem like you don’t want a holiday to yourself.”

“That day-- this  _ month _ \-- should be mine by right! It _ was _ mine! It shouldn’t have been taken in the first place!”

“Well it’s not like _ I _ had any say in that!” Jack punctuated the shout by slamming the butt of his staff against the stone and sending a trail of ice to latch onto Pitch’s feet to keep him from moving any closer. There was a narrow five feet between them at that point, and he didn’t care to discover what happened when that number reached zero.

In his riled state, Pitch forwent composure and snarled in response to the treatment. The short time it took him to extricate himself from the subpar shackles left the atmosphere lighter than it had been, and Jack sighed.

“Sure is tempting, though, i’n’t it?.”

“Oh Frost,” Pitch scoffed and dusted imaginary dirt off his sleeves, “if you think a single month to myself with boundaries is enough to win my help, you’ve been deluding yourself.”

He leaned against his staff lazily and raised a brow. “What, so you don’t want October back?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Pitch’s reply was too rushed to be casual, even if the tone in which he delivered it seemed aloof enough. Jack didn’t bother warding off his self-satisfied smirk-- which made Pitch bristle.

“Ah, so you do want it.”

“I would consider it,” he stated, more controlled than the previous second, “but you Guardians always have underlying conditions. I doubt they’re favorable.”

Once again, Jack wondered just how many things the others had taken from the Boogeyman in the past if that was the first place his mind went when an offer for something was extended. It also occurred to him that there hadn’t been any conditions discussed-- he’d left in such a hurry, they hadn’t had time to consider them. Which meant rules were up to him-- another new experience. 

“Nah, it’s nothing much, you’re just uh... not allowed to kill, maim, wreck towns-- basically none of the crap you pulled on Easter.”

“On the condition that I find the bodies of these children.”

Jack grimaced. Pitch spoke of their deaths in such a callous, matter-of-fact manner so unlike the others. The reminder that there would be bodies to find and not living kids was equally painful and he swallowed hard to ensure his voice didn’t come out any less steady than it had been for the entire exchange.

“Kinda hoping you’d find the thing doing the killing.”

“I see.”

He sounded cold, closed off and less interested, and Jack realized he hadn’t properly answered him. He supposed he didn’t have to, since he owed Pitch absolutely nothing, but it would waste precious time if they got into another argument over a detail so minor.

“All I’m asking is that you do your best to help find them. Technically the month’s still yours even if you can’t do it.”

The way Pitch stared at him, like he was a bug under a magnifying glass, had him feeling like insects were crawling over his skin. He wished desperately to know what was going through the man’s mind. 

“You do realize you’ve given me all the incentive to agree, but no real reason to put any effort into actually finding the brats.”

“I like being honest.” He scrubbed at one of his arms to rid himself the sensation and shrugged before Pitch could feel satisfied over creeping him out. “Besides, I said you had to help. That means do your best. If we don’t find the thing hurting them, at least we can’t say you didn’t try.”

“Fair enough. However, answer me one thing.”

“Shoot.”

Shadows in the corner of his eye flickered and Jack’s attention snapped to them, bracing for the attack that he’d been expected the moment he set foot into the lair. When it never came, he glanced back to find the Boogeyman no longer in sight. The realization that the movement had been little more than a distraction so Pitch could sink into nothingness dramatically was punctuated obnoxiously when Pitch’s voice filled the air from every angle. 

“Why would I want to stop the being that has been supplying me with an inordinate amount of fear? What good does saving these children do me? October is tempting, I’ll give you that. But there is nothing that sustains me better than the sheer mortal terror of an innocent light about to be snuffed. Give me an offer sweeter than that, and I could see merit in assisting.”

“ _ What?! _ ”

His stomach plummeted and Jack gaped at the open air while rage built in his chest. Had Pitch been leading up to that the entire time, and had never had any intention of accepting the trade in the first place? Jack got the impression that was the case, and he shook with the effort it took to not start blasting every nook and cranny where he could be hiding. As tempting as the idea was, he had no intention of getting caught up in a fight that would end with Pitch’s defeat and complete refusal to ever assist with this, and all future problems.

Though… that had sounded like a refusal for the current issue.

“So you’re not going to help?”

He bet Pitch was just eating up the strain in his voice and the dread coursing through him at the thought of once again being alone in the fight against the unknown evil. However, when nothing, not even a single chuckle, came as a response, Jack wondered if the Boogeyman was even around to hear him at all. 

“Pitch?  _ Pitch!” _


	3. III

He kept an eye on the Lights as he wandered the cavernous space he’d been abandoned. After several long moments spent in search of the Nightmare King turning up nothing, Jack had decided to explore the lair and inform the darkness of the gravity of the situation.

It left an unpleasant taste in his mouth, talking about the childrens’ deaths. The ever-growing hole in his heart clenched whenever he was forced to remember that there was one less innocent believer in the world, and he wondered if Pitch was eating up his fear and pain. The thought of him doing that was enough to make him angry, though as he spoke, he did his best to sound as nonplussed as possible. 

If Pitch truly had left, there would be no point in that, but something about the oppressive air told him that the Boogeyman was still skulking about. Had one of the other Guardians been there, they might have told him he was wasting his time, and on some level, Jack feared he was, but he also liked to think he understood Pitch enough to know he’d be listening. The shadows certainly seemed to shift away when tread upon them, or slink closer when he mentioned the frequency of the attacks and the amount of blood found at the scene. 

However, that changed when he reached the point in his speech where he trailed off on a ramble about not finding anything in the Beast’s Almanac that made logical sense. That ‘something’ in the atmosphere reminding him of Pitch disappeared without warning, leaving Jack with the impression that a thin sheet of darkness had been lifted to make room for easier breathing. The lair itself felt freed from its silent shackles, the unmoving cages rattling a bit when a light draft found its way into the cavern.

“Pitch?” Even his voice echoed in a way it hadn’t a moment ago. “You aren’t even here anymore, are you?” 

The silence was expected and Jack dragged a hand through his hair instead of throwing a fist into the nearest wall. He’d been hoping the things he said were at least piquing the Boogeyman’s interest since he’d hung around. But that hadn’t happened. And of course it hadn’t. Of course he wouldn’t help! He’d been made an offer that he didn’t appreciate, because Pitch was a selfish spirit and of course, he wanted more. He’d offered up a yearly power feast, and he’d rejected it. And now… now he’d wasted precious time. He released a pent up snarl and made for the exit. He wasn’t about to hang around and hope that Pitch would change his mind and offer any sort of assistance. He’d made his stance on the issue clear. Tooth and Bunny had been right, as usual. He wondered how they’d react to him telling them that. Bunny would probably end up a little smug before realizing that no Pitch, meant they were no closer to saving the kids.

The kids…

Jack cast a glance towards the globe before he took his leave. The flickering Light there might have been missed by someone else, but he’d grown hyper aware of the meaning behind every shift in brightness across the map and the movement was clear as day to him. The sinking feeling that came with knowledge of every attack hit him full in the face when he saw the flickering was coming from the same place as the others that had gone out before it. That only meant one thing.

“Wind!”

He was already out of the lair and in the air before he could think twice about telling the others of the predicament. The light had not gone out yet, which meant there was a chance of catching the creature in the act-- there was a chance he could save the child. He would worry about Pitch and everything else later.

* * *

He had not been entirely ignorant to the human plight across the ocean, however, fear only conveyed so much from so far away, so the scope of severity in crimes committed had been lost in translation. Granted, this hadn’t been the first time a vengeful or out of control spirit murdered children, and he was certain it wouldn’t be the last, but what he’d gotten off Jack Frost had been a touch intriguing, if not concerning.

It had been centuries since the last rogue creature, after all. Perhaps the Winter Spirit’s fears had been overdramatized, but if there was a chance that much blood was present at the crime scenes, then it was strange no bodies had been found close by.

He hadn’t been about to let Frost onto that fact, though. No, it was best to keep him believing he had no interest in anything having to do with the children. It would’ve been impossible to ignore the problem, though, since he’d been well aware that something was causing distress across the ocean. Weakened as he was, it was difficult to pinpoint the location of far away fears but that did not mean he didn’t feel the smallest dose of true terror from any corner of the world. He’d known something was scaring children and subsequently fuelling his power, he just hadn’t known the source of it. Thanks to Frost, he now knew exactly where to look for front row seats to whatever was feeding him. 

That did not mean he was not a touch perturbed; something was causing children fear and it wasn’t him, and that only added insult to injury. Not only did children refuse to believe in him, but they’d found something they’d deemed worthy of their fear, if not their belief. And in addition to that, this thing had the gall to hunt in the very area he’d recently vacated? 

Yes, he did take an interest in Frost’s plea, and he certainly planned on getting to the bottom of things, but whether he would do so while giving them any sort of help remained to be seen. He would not lie to himself and say he was not at least contemplating the offer the newly minted Guardian had brought his way, but he was not about to pounce on the opportunity either. He was not a dog and he could not be leashed or bribed so easily. Besides, he was curious to see how far the Guardians would be willing to go to gain his knowledge and assistance-- offering him October back was not that big a gesture. He wanted to see just how desperate they were.

So he stayed in the shadows and listened to Jack stumble over his words, assessing the situation and waiting to see if the little spirit would throw anything into the mix that would make the thought of working alongside him bearable. He’d been prepared to throw the Guardian out when he’d felt the first spike of horror shuddering through him, leaving a warmth curling in his chest and a tang in the back of his throat. It was the same brand of fear that had been strengthening him in painfully small increments: mortal terror. 

And thanks to Jack, he knew exactly where to go to find the source of it.

Speaking of Jack, he was still talking. The child’s fear was far more interesting though, and Pitch gave no indication to the Guardian when he opened a rift and shifted to shadows on the other side of the world. He hadn’t travelled that far since the last surge of power and when he emerged into a dark alley he took a moment braced against the wall to catch his breath. Shadow travel should not have taken so much out of him and he glared at the brick under his palm before pushing off and striding out into the streets. 

The fear was thicker here, more tangible, but it was also softer than before… almost like a residual footprint left when traumatic events transpired and then halted. It was interesting that the live haywire terror ceased as soon as he arrived. Pitch narrowed his eyes at the odd coincidence and followed the small echo of darkness until he stood at the edge of the town’s forest. 

_ Of course. _ He rolled his eyes at the cliche predictability of it all and briefly entertained the idea that whatever was causing so much trouble was just copying his older, sloppier work. He discarded it when he reminded himself bitterly that if the children weren’t afraid of him now, they certainly wouldn’t have been afraid of his old tricks… even if those ones had been much more savage than those in his current repertoire. 

He stepped into the winding trees and made his way towards the last source of fear. It was growing weaker as time passed, and Pitch mourned the loss of such exquisite fuel. However, it’s loss was a good indicator of when the child had passed. Even residual fears had a lingering time that was dependent on their owner’s situation. At that point, he would peg the death around ten minutes ago. That was plenty of time for the killer to slink back into the shadows, and Pitch had no delusions that he would catch sight of it tonight, but it did give a good time frame to work off of for a future time window.

If he decided to help, anyway.

He was not about to dive into any sort of agreement with the Guardians and his Old Friend when he wasn’t even sure he currently had the power to find the creature. The whereabouts of a scared child, certainly, but a creature dark enough to be comfortable killing said child, that was different. There was also the matter of why it killed, and what it did with the bodies after they were deceased. Frost had said they’d found no bodies, and that never indicated anything good-- there was a high chance that this creature was immensely powerful. It had already been able to keep hidden long enough to kill so many children over a short stretch of time.

However, he wasn’t going to entertain too many ideas relating to that until he’d surveyed the crime scene on his own-- run over it with a fine toothed comb. After all, there was only so much Guardians could find when they weren’t so connected to the darker forces of nature. They could have missed a number of crucial things.

He wound through the trees, careful to mask the sound of his footsteps as an added caution in case the creature was still within the area. Travelling so far had depleted his energy enough that all he could manage for the remainder of the night would be one last shadow walk. He could not afford any trouble yet. 

It became clear when he reached the site of disappearance, however, that he needn’t have bothered with such stealth. Humans crawled all over the area he stood before, flashlights cutting paths through the darkness and voices taught with distress calling into the night. They were adults and Pitch saw they wore vests that likely indicated they were some form of law enforcement or search party. There were six altogether, all radiating their own brand of worry and upset, tainting whatever might have been left over of the child’s for him to detect. Pitch glared at them and wished desperately that he had enough power to throw a blanket of chilled apprehension over the group so they would leave; they were ruining his chance to gleam anything new.

Not only that, but their fears were serving a decent distraction. While his eyes searched for anything that could clue him in to what had done the deed, the rest of his senses were swivelled towards the group, reaching out and salivating over the small snacks. When wetness hit his chin and he realized it wasn’t just his senses salivating, Pitch snarled and flicked the spittle away. He had more control over himself than that-- it was pathetic that a group so small as theirs was enough to spike his more primal urges. Just another testament to how weak he’d become.

It was interesting, how the longer he stayed around humans, the more Frost’s offer felt like charity-- and also became harder to resist.

He shook his head at the thought and stalked into the middle of the party, searching for anything remotely useful while also forcing his senses to reign themselves in. As he did that, he spotted an imprint in the soil a few feet away. It was a shape he didn’t immediately recognize, gnarled and beastial as it was. The dirt around it was dug up where he assumed claws had dug into it. Sharp claws, if the dragging pattern he saw following the small divot in the ground was an indicator. There was also a distinctly unnatural color mixed in with that imprint. Sanguine, if his eyes were correct. Pitch crept closer to confirm his suspicions that the blood had belonged to the child, and not an injured creature, but stopped short when the chill of a human walking through him made his lungs momentarily seize up. 

A noise of dismay escaped him when that same human walked over the footprint, effectively destroying it, and anything Pitch may have been able to find in it. He couldn’t bring himself to be more than inconvenienced by such a thing, though, as he’d already seen the print and that had been enough to understand at least one thing: he was going to be of no help without more power. A creature large enough to leave prints that deep, while having the ability to weave through a dense forest, was not one to be so easily trifled with.

However, he had every intention of dealing with it. Whatever it was, it stole the fear that was rightfully his, taking children from a world belonging to him, and that would not stand. Not in any timeline Pitch found himself still living.

With that in mind, he moved to survey the land where the human had yet to drag their careless feet. With the exception of a mark cutting deep into the bark of a nearby tree, there was nothing. No footprint or signs of struggle. No blood. As if the creature had simply blinked out of existence. He only knew a handful of beings who could do that with assistance of magic, himself included, but none of the others lived anywhere close by-- and they certainly did not have such animalistic features.

A gust of icy wind snapped him from his musings and alerted him to the new presence a few feet away. Frost had himself perched precariously atop thin branches and Pitch willed them to break. As his luck would have it, they did not.

“What are you doing skulking around here?”

Frost sounded in every way suspicious and Pitch unconsciously drifted closer to the darkest shadows in case he needed to make a hasty retreat. Though the idea of retreating from Jack Frost of all people left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

It was not as though the Guardian did not have reason to be suspicious, either. It made logical sense that Frost would treat him like that when he’d disappeared on him and suddenly turned up in the same place a child had recently departed. However, he’d done nothing wrong and he refused to be under such scrutiny longer than he needed to be. That, and he could not deny that, if only for the monster alone, the mystery surrounding the deaths had piqued his interest.

“Make this deal more worthwhile and I’ll help you.”

Frost snorted and hopped down from his perch, disturbing the forest floor when he landed with a light thud. “What? Isn’t October enough?”

Pitch narrowed his eyes. He’d known there would be some negotiation involved, and he had an idea on how to get what he wanted, but he walked a thin line in doing so. He refused to admit to the child just how little power he had. 

“That’s scraping the surface. There’s more your precious Guardians have to offer.”

“What are you talking about?” Jack frowned, crossing his arms over his chest, and Pitch didn’t have to be a mind reader to know he was annoyed. 

He smirked tightly. Annoyed Frost was fun to mess around with-- his emotions were so turbulent at any given time, just like the blizzards he so loved to create. It was impossible to resist riling him up when the chance presented itself, especially when he could sense the opportunity to plant seeds of doubt into his mind regarding his loyalty to the Guardians.

“Oh, so they haven’t told you?” He eagerly latched on to the small spike of concern from the spirit. “Tell me, how does it feel, being excluded from your own club?”

Jack shook his head sharply, a gesture Pitch recognized from the last time he’d played with his mind. This time, however, he had more than just a plea for him to stop on his tongue.

“Shut up, Pitch-- they’re not like that, and you know it.”

“Oh Frost, you forget I know each of them better than they know each other--

“Get to the point.

“--And I know when they have something more to give.”

“Y’know, if you stopped being so cryptic and just told me what you wanted, this might go faster.” 

During his small speech, Pitch had stalked closer to the boy, enough that he could see that outwardly, Jack seemed completely unaffected by his words.

Pitch was more than a little perturbed by that fact. Jack had been so easy to rile up before. He wasn’t now, and Pitch suspected the Guardians were to blame. He was fairly certain they’d told him to not take any bait, because while he acted calm, those insecurities were still settled close to Frost’s heart, he could sense them. So Jack was ignoring how much his words hurt because the Guardians had probably told him to. 

That fact was enough to put a damper on his mood and his desire to play games, and Pitch sighed to himself. He supposed there was nothing else to do now, except get to the point.

“You want to know what I want?”

Jack shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

Close as he was, it was a simple feat to grab a handful of the boy’s hood.

“I want my relic.”

Jack made a noise of surprise and brought his staff up to attack, but Pitch didn’t give him the chance to let anything loose before he dragged him into the shadows. 

The yelp Frost released in the darkness made him snort. It was vaguely amusing to see the reactions of different creatures to shadow travel. Some said it felt like being dragged through icy water, while others likened it to walking through a dream, something difficult to cut through. Their levels of fear were always about the same either way, though. Pitch never understood that, but their distress at being pulled at inhuman speeds through the black he called home was usually enough to put him at ease. Even when the company he brought into his sanctuary was  _ not  _ the kind he wanted to associate with.

When the darkness spit them back out, Pitch still had a tight hold on Jack’s sweatshirt, which ended up being the only thing keeping the boy from falling off of North’s globe. The disorientation that came after shadow travel was worse for those who didn’t teleport on a regular basis, but Frost seemed to recover fairly quickly anyway-- Pitch wondered if his constant being tossed about by the Wind aided that. He realized with delay that he should have released him and let him fall. 

The Guardians stood below them, shouting in concern for their charge and hostility at him while they drew their weapons. Jack was still blinking in surprise at what Pitch assumed was related to the fact that he’d brought them into the Pole with little difficulty. However, when he turned his attention to him and a small smile pulled his face, Pitch was at a loss.

“That’s pretty effective.” Ah, the shadows. Figures Frost would’ve found them entertaining. “But uh,” he went on, “what’s a relic?”

“Ask them.”

Pitch released his hold and Jack barely caught himself on the Wind before he face-planted onto the floor in front of the Guardians. When he shot him a glare, Pitch only tucked his hands behind his back in mock innocence. 

“Ask us what, Jack?”

The Tooth Fairy asked while North put a hand on Frost’s shoulder and asked what Pitch was doing there. 

“Has he agreed?”

“Uh… sort of?” Jack scratched the back of his neck and Pitch watched with amusement he kept off his face for the most part. He could already guess how they would react to what he had to say next, and it would be interesting. “He says he wants his relic? I’m assuming you guys know what that means?”

“Oh, like hell he’s gettin’ that back!” 

“Not a chance, Pitch.”

“ **Ø** ”

“Was good try, though.”

He rolled his eyes at their protests and remained rooted to his spot on the globe when he offered his retort. 

“Then I suppose you’re fine with the children’s deaths. A shame, isn’t it,  _ Jack _ ?”

The emphasis placed on his name seemed to make the Guardians realize their youngest member was looking on at them all with confusion and Pitch watched as they simmered down one after the other. It was beyond fascinating, seeing them all on some kind of leash with Frost around. Very interesting.

“What’s the big deal about this relic, anyway?”

Pitch wished he had a camera to capture the varying levels of discomfort across all of their faces when Jack voiced that question. He could see them trying to come up with a way to answer without giving too much away-- figures they didn’t want him to know just how often they’d kept Pitch out of power in the past. 

“Because it’s a relic from his time in the Dark Ages.”

Toothiana was the one to answer, sounded reluctant, and Pitch nodded to himself because at least she was being honest. Jack’s dropped jaw and bulging eyes as response were highly comedic, even as he scoffed at his naivety-- young spirits who knew nothing of the old world were odd in how they viewed it. 

“What? Seriously? That stuff still exists?”

“Yes,” North confirmed, “is very powerful. Like...phone charger-- or bomb.”

“Yeah, and the dingo doesn’t need a bloody battery pack to help us!”

The Pooka shot him a fierce glare and Pitch manipulated his own shadow enough to make a petting gesture close to his feet. He flinched back before tightening his hold on his boomerangs. Pitch snickered before taking the opportunity to answer.

“Because, this creature is killing children-- it is likely too far gone to be reasoned with. I assume you will want the threat nullified and don’t have time to dirty your own hands. Thus: Relic.”

“In your dreams, mate.” Bunnymund raised an arm and Pitch prepared to summon his scythe, letting shade swirl threateningly between his fingers. He had no real energy to put up any sort of fight and he’d be taken out almost immediately if he tried anything, but that didn’t mean he was going to let them onto that fact. He hadn’t expected the Guardians to be happy about anything he had to say anyway, and it had only been a matter of time before they attacked. Pitch wondered if he shouldn’t tell them that giving a little made people more inclined to help them.

Before either of them could move to strike, the burly cossack stood in their way and encouraged the rabbit to calm down, because they didn’t want any unnecessary fighting breaking out-- especially not in his home. Pitch settled immediately, mostly because keeping up the pretense that he could summon his weapon was exhausting, but also to make himself seem like the more reasonable of the two.

Bunny put his own weapons away after another second of glaring murder at him. At that point, North made the suggestion that they all go into another room to discuss it. Pitch already figured such a discussion would mostly be arguing over the possible backlash should they choose to abide by his terms, which would ultimately end in their refusal to hand him his relic, but he decided to stay while they did so in order to recuperate. 

They all moved to leave and Pitch felt eyes on him. Sandman. How he hated him and those damned eyes-- always judging, swirling with wisdom and kindness… so  _ soft _ . It was pathetic. But, there was something else there too when Pitch met his gaze. Something unidentifiable that had him baring his teeth. The smaller man shook his head before walking away. Pitch had no clue what that look should have meant, but he did know he didn’t like or appreciate it-- whatever it was.

North was the last to leave the room. “Pitch, you stay there.”

He was pleased to know he’d been giving off the air that he still held some threat to him when the warning rang through the air. So they still thought he had the ability to sneak around and listen in. Good. Even the yetis watched him warily. Even better.

Pitch made a show of sighing heavily and leaning casually against the globe’s vertical support. “Since you asked so nicely.”

North disappeared behind a heavy door after that and Pitch let himself sag against the wood under his back. Standing up like that for so long after depleting his power had not been a great idea on his part, but it was not one he could regret when the Guardians had agreed to hear him out. Now, he just had to wait.

* * *

Jack frowned at the group before him once North had the door closed and locked. He’d wondered if there was a place where they kept things that once belonged to Pitch, but he’d never expected such a hunce to actually be true. Finding out that they actually had things that belonged to him, and from the Dark Age to be exact, had been a shock. And he wasn’t even sure how he felt about it. One one hand, a powerful Pitch was too evil for his own good… but a weak Pitch was desperate, which made him just as bad. He wondered if there was a possible middle ground that they’d never achieved because of the constant push and pull of good and evil between he and the Guardians, but he didn’t voice such a thing to the others.

They’d probably just say he was being naive. Maybe he was. Pitch was the bad guy, after all.

The first to break the tense silence, to everyone’s surprise, was Sandy. He spoke slowly enough that Jack was able to catch what he said, and he tilted his head, confused about the topic the golden Guardian had decided to bring up.

_ Pitch. Eyes. Sick person. _

Thinking back on it, Pitch had looked pretty bad. He’d been busy talking about the children and worrying about them, he hadn’t taken too much notice of the Boogeyman’s potential problems. With it pointed out, he could agree that he hadn’t looked good, though.

“Yeah,” Bunny shrugged, “so?”

_ Sick person. Pitch. A staff. Happy person. _

Jack was at a loss as to what that meant, but it apparently meant something to the others.

“We have no way of knowing he’ll be better when he gets his staff.” Tooth crossed her arms over his chest plume. “He could just be manipulating how he looks to get sympathy. He’s not above that and you know it.”

“Pitch’s relic was a staff?”

“Exactly!” Bunny responded to Tooth and Jack’s question went unanswered. That was okay, because it had been pretty rhetorical. The others kept talking about Pitch’s potential manipulation but Jack only half heard it as he took his own staff into both hands, running his thumbs along the markings in the wood he’d long ago memorized. He could still remember what it had felt like when Pitch snapped it in two, the pain that had caused. He wondered if Pitch had a similar connection to his staff. Bunny _ had _ called it a battery. If that was the case and it had been kept from him all this time...

He told himself he wouldn’t feel sorry for the Boogeyman, but it got harder when that line of thinking pushed into his mind. Perhaps that was why Pitch looked so bad. Without Nightmares to fuel him, he could’ve been like a lot of other spirits. Weak without one of his power sources. Just like he had been when his own ‘relic’ had been damaged. The thought that Pitch had been brought so low, and that he’d helped do that, sat weird in his chest. He didn’t feel bad for protecting the children and putting Pitch back in his place, but… maybe they shouldn’t have just left him to rot after his defeat.

“Guys?” Everyone paused their arguing and looked his way. “Maybe he wants it because...he can’t help us without it.”

The expressions they wore told him they hadn’t completely considered that-- with the exception of Sandy, who was nodding vigorously, as if that’s what he’d been trying to say all along. 

“That may be true…” North started and Tooth picked it up.

“Maybe. But let’s say we do give it to him, and Pitch does help. What about after he’s done and doesn’t want to give the staff back. What’s stopping him from trying to put the world back into another Dark Age?”

He hadn’t considered that. From what he knew of Pitch, Tooth’s concerns were likely valid. But, it wasn’t as if there weren’t ways to keep him in check even if he had his powers. 

“What if we only gave it to him for a little while? Y’know, take it back after he does what we asked him to do. He’s not gonna need it after that anyway, right?”

“Even if we did that, what’s there to keep Pitch holdin’ up his end of the bargain?”

Before Jack could think up a proper response, North clapped his hands and announced something about a book. 

“What?”

“Leprechaun magic,” North clarified, “when both parties agree to something, is binding.”

He’d never heard of anything like that before. “Seriously? You have that lying around?”

“In library,” North moved through his office’s side door and into said room while he continued, “he owed me a century back. Never got around to using it, though.”

“Convenient,” Jack muttered as he followed the man into the cavernous room. He wasn’t sure how North navigated the towers of books so easily, but within a few minutes, he had what he was talking about. 

It didn’t look all that impressive or magical-- just a little green book with a single gold page inside and a strange array of symbols etched into it, and... maybe it did look a little magical. With the Leprechaun, it was hard to tell, things could look extravagant or archaic or nothing much at all and you just had to trust that he was telling the truth when he said it was special.

“That’s all well an’ good, North. But he ain’t gonna agree to giving it back to us.”

Given his earlier interaction with Pitch, he knew Bunny was right, but Jack also didn’t see the big deal. Or perhaps they all just weren’t seeing the bigger picture. 

“Bunny, if we force him to do what we ask, then he’ll find the monster for us. After he deals with it, I can just steal the thing back. Think about it: after a fight, even when you still have believers, you’re tired. And if he’s weak without the relic, then he shouldn’t put up too much of a fight. I can get it back.”

“That’s a huge gamble, Jack.”

“I can do it,” he assured Tooth, putting a little force behind his words. “Can you just believe in me?”

She and Bunny blinked and said nothing in reply. He didn’t know when asking for their belief in him was going to stop pulling mildly guilty looks from them, and some days he felt bad about bringing it up, but in the moment he wanted nothing more than to be finished with the conversation. When another second passed and they said nother, he decided to take the silence as a yes and turned to North, letting him know he was ready when they were.

With the plan in place and the book procured, North lead their party back into the Globe room where Pitch remained rooted to the same spot they’d left him. Jack had half expected him to move around and mess with something, maybe the Yetis. The fact that he hadn’t lended evidence to Sandy’s theory that he wasn’t doing so great.

“Pitch, we have come to a decision,” North announced as they all stopped before the Globe. 

“Oh?” The Boogeyman leaned over them all and raised a brow. “Do tell. I’m on the edge of my seat.”

“You should be,” Jack retorted before the others could speak, “cuz we’re gonna give it back.”

“... Oh?”

“Yeah, so can you get down here now and stop being a  _ weirdo _ .”

The other Guardian’s looked at him funny when he momentarily adopted the same accent as the Boogeyman to put emphasis on the last word, and when Pitch appeared before him with the smallest smirk on his face, Jack knew he’d understood what he was referencing. They’d only talked so many times before, after all, and Pitch had used that specific term sparingly.

“Well? Where is it?”

“Chill out,” Jack laughed and grabbed the book from North, holding it up for Pitch to see. “We’ll give it back, but you’ve gotta swear an oath to fulfill your end of the bargain. You gotta find the thing and get rid of it.”

“The Leprechaun’s book. Really?” He looked like he wanted to laugh at it and Jack rolled his eyes.

“You know very well that Patrick’s Oath Magic is the strongest binding tool out there.”

He didn’t know if that was true, but Pitch’s expression tightened to something more guarded again and he eyed the book warily, so Jack took that as confirmation that it was. 

“I help you people, I get October and my staff back, and all you want is an oath. Simple as that.” Pitch didn’t look convinced and Jack shrugged. He had nothing to hide… that Pitch needed to know about right now, anyway. 

“Pretty much.”

A long moment of consideration passed and Jack wondered if everyone was holding their breath or if it was just him. Eventually, Pitch did break the silence.

“Very well,” he sighed, “but you have to swear an oath that you  _ will _ return them to me. I won’t have any recanting on your part either.”

A glance at the Guardians told Jack that they were suddenly on edge and worrying over the downfall of the plan he’d discussed earlier in the library, and that sent a stab of irritation and hurt into him. He’d done a lot to earn their trust and confidence, but even now it seemed they still thought he would mess something up. But he wasn’t going to do that. 

“Deal.”

He may have been naive, but when it came to Pitch, he wasn’t stupid. In fact, he’d learned a thing or two from the Boogeyman about twisting words and meanings-- and he knew exactly how Patrick’s magic worked. Pitch didn’t --at least he hoped not-- so it was with confidence that he met the man’s gaze and opened the Oath book to reveal the arrays upon the gleaming page. He placed his hand over it and waited.

Pitch rolled his eyes but settled his hand overtop his. Jack took a second to marvel over the fact that his skin wasn’t at all the gravely texture he’d expected, but smooth, like chilled glass. Not so different from his own, in fact-- not at all like the greasy, sticky mess his mind had begun to believe it would be, at any rate. Just another thing about the Boogeyman that surprised him. Jack wondered how long the list would be by the time they were done working together.

“You first.”

“Very well,” Pitch huffed, “I, Kozmotis Pitchner Black, King of Nightmares, swear to assist Jacks Frost in finding the creature and disposing of it, on the condition that I am returned what is rightfully mine  _ without  _ deception, falsification, pretense, or delay.”

The small condition tacked on had Jack making some mental corrections to his own half of the oath, but otherwise he had no complaints. It was good enough for Jack and good enough for the book, because it glowed a soft green light. One oath sealed. His turn now. He took a deep breath.

“And I, Jack Frost, Guardian of Fun, swear to returned the month of October to Pitch Black, and to have the Guardians return the Dark Age staff to Pitch Black... on the condition that he upholds his oath to completion and brings no harm to children or myself while the relic is in his possession.” 

Pitch narrowed his eyes when he added the last part and Jack sent him a smirk while the magic glow suddenly disappeared and moved up their arms. Pitch withdrew his first with a distasteful shake while Jack did his best not to look too smug when he handed North back the spent Oath book.


	4. IV

No sooner than the oath had been made did North and the others insist as politely as they could manage that Pitch leave. The Boogeyman had been insistent that they turn his things over immediately, but according to Bunny, that much negative energy would “taint” the Pole. Jack thought that had been a bit dramatic, because the presence of the relic wouldn’t harm the place anymore in Pitch’s hands than it would sitting there… probably. Still, it had been entertaining to see the sour face Pitch pulled in response.

They decided on meeting at the Burgess lake for the tradeoff, much to Pitch’s frustration --at least, Jack assumed that’s what the pinched expression he wore conveyed. As soon as he dematerialized, Jack turned to the others with his winningest smile. It did little to wipe away the varied looks of concern on their faces. He sighed.

“Guys, I’ve got this.”

“We know you do, Jack,” Tooth assured, “Just… try not to let him get to you.”

“You mean manipulate me? Cuz, I know.”

“He’s going to try to find a loophole in the oath. So be prepared for that.”

Jack held onto the sigh he wanted to heave and instead waved a hand at the fairy. “Pitch isn’t that hard to deal with.”

It wasn’t Pitch he was concerned about anymore. Jack glanced at the Globe and the delicate Lights pulsating softly in childish delight. The Lights that were his top priority, that not even Pitch would get in the way of him saving. His fear for those children outweighed any he may have one time felt in the presence of the Boogeyman’s quasi-mind reading abilities. There was no simple way to explain that to the Guardians, and doing so would waste precious time, time those kids didn’t have, so Jack forewent that and instead asked where the relic was.

He assumed Pitch already waited for him, pacing back and forth or whatever it was he did when he got impatient, and while it would have been fun to leave him on his own for a little while, Jack wouldn’t have been able to properly enjoy it until Burgess was safe again. 

They wasted little time retrieving Pitch’s staff from the bowels of the Pole and Jack made a mental note of the room’s location so he could break in later and discover all the secrets he couldn’t pay attention to currently. Though the look on North’s face as he turned to him made Jack wonder if he already planned on changing the locks while he was gone so he couldn’t.

_ Problem for another day, _ he reminded himself as North brought forth the relic. It was wrapped in a fabric red as blood from top to bottom, leaving no area uncovered, and before Jack could take time to wonder why that was, it was being placed in his hands. He grunted when the unexpected weight of it had him nearly losing his grip. He thought it would’ve been similar to his own staff, light as a feather and imbued with magics that made for eased wielding. It felt more like lead in his hands and he shook his head, because of course a weapon belonging to Pitch would be impractical. Unless he used it like he did his scythe… then it was probably pretty practical. But then using a staff like a scythe was a method in and of itself impractical, so…  _ eh, whatever. Pitch is weird. _

When he was sure he wouldn’t drop it mid-flight, Jack bid the others goodbye and shot into the sky, letting the Wind propel him toward home. 

Pitch waited by the trees, a solitary pillar in the gentle nature around him. He wasn’t pacing though, and Jack felt vaguely disappointed, having expected him to at least look anxious to have his property returned. He let the man in on that much when he landed, too-- after shooting a thin trail of ice up his robes to grab his attention. Pitch eyed him with either disdain or disgust as he shook the fragile chill off his clothes and Jack rolled his eyes as he dropped one end of the foreign staff into the dirt. 

“Is this as tacky as it feels?”

“Are you as ridiculous as you look?”

“I feel like we both know the answer to that one.”

“Indeed.”

Pitch held a hand out for his staff, and though he appeared patient, Jack didn’t miss the small tremor in his arm… though he couldn’t quite decide if it was fatigue or anticipation causing that. Anticipation made him seem less pitiable, so he chose to believe it was that as he pushed the relic into the other’s grip.

Pitch practically hunched over it like an animal as soon as it was close to his chest, and the way he unwrapped it, carefully like it was made of glass, reminded Jack of a child hoarding their presents on Christmas morning. He snorted softly at the mental image but Pitch paid him no mind. He only had eyes for the thing in his hands. The thing that Jack could not deny was beautiful and nothing close to tacky, with dark, polished wood that stood taller than the Boogeyman with a strange ‘S’ shape resting at the top. It didn’t look like something that Pitch would ever own. In fact, he was struck by how similar it was to his own staff.

What was so special about it, he still wasn’t sure. At least, not until he caught sight of Pitch’s eyes, which were brighter than he remembered them being a moment ago. Then they were closing and Jack watched with morbid fascination as the shadows around Pitch snapped to attention before slithering up and around him until his features blurred into obscurity. Jack had little time to decide how he felt about that before the darkness retreated from the man to reveal Pitch looking unlike Jack had seen him before, with darker skin and robes blacker than night that draped like silk in a way that was distinctly separate from himself, a stark contrast to the rags from before that seemed painted on. It seemed older… more refined, and the dulled metallic gold gleam from around his waist and neck certainly lended to that appearance. 

The fact that a simple touch of the staff allowed him to alter his appearance so much was disconcerting. When the Guardians had said it was essentially a battery, he hadn’t realized it would be that powerful from the get go. He also wondered how much more was actually packed inside the relic waiting to be released-- and more distantly, he wondered if this was how Pitch was supposed to look, because as he currently stood, it was easier to understand how he could’ve been a fearsome sight to behold during the Dark Ages. Even if he wasn’t scared or intimidated by him, he would’ve been lying if he didn’t think this Pitch looked a good deal more “Boogeyman” than the one standing in his place a moment prior.

More interesting than all that, however, was the expression Pitch wore. For the briefest of moments, a nearly content look crossed his face-- Jack’s mind supplied the smile Bunny wore when Sophie had fallen asleep in his arms for comparison. It was such a foreign look to see crossing his face and Jack hummed to himself. The noise seemed to break Pitch out of whatever sort of revealing trance he had going and his face returned to the stony wall of contempt Jack was used to seeing. 

When Pitch looked at him Jack didn’t know what he expected, whether or not he was supposed to react, so he just shrugged and flicked his own staff across his shoulders casually.

“Well, at least you look as pretentious as you sound now.”

Pitch only rolled his eyes in response and whirled around to leave the area. Jack followed close behind, keeping an eye on him as they walked. With however much power he had thrumming into his fingertips, it would be easy for Pitch to slip back into the shadows and leave him to do the searching on his own. Tooth’s warning that he would try to find loopholes in the oath swam close to the forefront of his mind, a reminder to keep a close eye on the Boogeyman at all times.

“So.”

Pitch made no attempt to respond and Jack tried again, louder.

“ _ So _ …”

An exasperated noise made it back to him and Jack smirked to himself. “‘So’ what, Jack?”

“Getting any evil vibes yet? Any idea where we should look?”

Pitch looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes dramatically. “As much as I hate to disappoint you, Jack, it takes time to hunt, even like this.”

The notion that they would not immediately be able to stop the creature served to dampen his mood, if only a little. As long as nobody else was hurt while they searched, he supposed he could be content with Pitch’s process. That didn’t mean he was about to enjoy it, though, especially when the Boogeyman was making no attempt to be quick, the leisurely pace he took speaking to that fact. 

“Y’know, you could pretend you’re taking this seriously. The longer you do nothing, the longer we’re stuck together.”

“Does it ever bother the Guardians-- you’re constant impatience?” Pitch sneered. Jack crossed his arms and let the Wind pick him up so he could match the man’s height. 

“Excuse me for thinking you’d be wanting out of the bond sooner than later.” 

_ He _ certainly did. There was nothing wrong with being around Pitch when it was on his terms, but that was when he wasn’t doing things like tossing out underhandedly scathing remarks. There was also the constant risk of being betrayed, having to keep an eye on his back to make sure a shadow spike didn’t end up buried in it. Jack wanted out of the deal with Pitch for a number of reasons, saving the children being at the top, but not the sole one. It didn’t take a genius to know Pitch likely found it a mutual sentiment.

“Ah yes, the oath,” he said, “I suppose you think you’re clever, wording it the way you did.”

“You liked that?” Jack snorted when Pitch only gave him that same unimpressed narrowing of his eyes. “Can’t blame me for wanting my bases covered.”

“I suppose not,” Pitch conceded, though Jack got the distinct feeling there was an undercurrent of sarcasm. “I am the biggest threat to your band of toy soldiers.”

Even though Jack had called the man something quite similar when speaking with the others in the past, hearing it come from the Boogeyman himself was enough to make him snort. Pitch’s quizzical glance only made it harder to not laugh outright.

“You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t’cha?”

He received no reply from the man and Pitch picked up his pace. Feeling pleased that he’d effectively stopped that line of conversation, Jack followed along quietly, choosing to watch the things Pitch did as they stepped into the streets of the downtown area. Cars crawled past occasionally, the adults less busy at the later hour. People still milled about on foot though, travelling in groups of three or more and Jack nodded in approval-- even if the teens weren’t listening to the curfew that had put into place, at least they weren’t being completely stupid by going out on their own. Although they weren’t at much risk, either. The creature had been hurting children, none of them older than twelve.

Perhaps it was only his imagination, but the town seemed more subdued than he’d ever seen it. With the deaths of so many children, it made sense, but it wasn’t just that. At least, he didn’t think it was. He’d been in places where death came through like a sudden storm, leaving few living behind, but even those areas hadn’t seemed so… void and dark. 

He checked Pitch as they walked on, looking for any indication that he noticed the strange atmosphere too. If he did he gave nothing away. However, when they walked past one of the smaller groups and they immediately began looking over their shoulders, holding their phones tighter as they picked up their pace, Jack wondered if Pitch was the cause of the eerie feeling. He certainly did not seem to disturbed by the shiving discomfort of the group, if the twitch at the corner of his mouth was to mean anything.

Just the small shift in demeanor made him hold tighter to his staff. He didn’t think Pitch would be crazy enough to try anything yet, but he also knew from the Guardians how quickly that sort of attitude of his could change if he felt powerful enough. They all were constantly reminding him when they came across an issue in their realm that power corrupted even the best of people if they only thought of themselves… and then they would use Pitch as an example of that. The fact that the Boogeyman was such a cautionary tale made him wonder, not for the first time, what the Dark Ages must have been like. 

A cat meowed somewhere in the distance and Pitch changed their trajectory. Where they had been making steady progress in the direction of the woods, now they were crossing the street and heading for a shadowy alleyway. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes over the predictability of the Boogeyman when he noticed another group, this one consisting of adults who looked like they were getting off of work, who seemed to freeze up as they walked through Pitch. It was only for a moment, but it was striking to see that sort of reaction from a human. In his experience, when non-believers walked through, he was caught up in temporary paralysis. And Pitch had that problem too-- Jack hadn’t forgotten his reaction to Jamie running through him after his defeat.

With his staff, though... 

He hadn’t realized it was possible to affect people in such a physical way when they didn’t believe in you. It was another reminder that Pitch was not like him or even other spirits. 

His attention didn’t go unnoticed. From the corner of his eye he could see a faint golden glow affixed in his direction. Pitch said nothing, but Jack could tell he wanted to know what had him being quiet. After all, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t self-aware-- Jack knew very well people found it suspicious when he was silent for too long. 

He had nothing to hide from him though, so he only shrugged and tilted his head to get a better look at the man’s face. Perhaps he could gauge his reaction.

“You… really are different than everyone else, huh?”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, like, how come people can believe in you but not see you?”

Pitch raised a brow ridge, demanding more of an explanation.

“Well, I know kids who said they’re afraid of the Boogeyman, but then walk right through you?”

“Ah yes, that.” Pitch released a sigh that Jack couldn’t decipher the meaning behind and looked into the moonless sky. “An interesting little perk.”

“Perk?” Jack tilted his head further until he thought he might seem to be mimicking Tooth’s bird-like mannerisms. “How do you mean?”

Pitch’s cackle as soon as the words left his mouth was nothing short of mocking. Jack glared, digging his nails into his staff while waiting for Pitch to finish up and answer his question. He had no doubt he would, either, because Pitch loved to talk about himself and what he viewed as his superiority. If there was something about him that he deemed a “perk” he’d eventually come out with it. 

“You’re telling me you don’t understand how the belief system works?”

He took a moment to scoff. “Of course I know how it works. It’s not like I don’t have believers.”

“Then you know all about the different levels of power brought about, both by belief in a concept and belief in a specific entity?”

“... Um.”

“Thought not,” Pitch sighed and slowed his pace as they approached the alleyway. “Why would the Guardians tell you anything of importance?”

“Watch it--”

“Luckily for you, I am decidedly more forthcoming. Now, listen up, Frost.” He halted and Jack barely had time to do the same and avoid running into the man. The sharp movement and change in tone were enough to grab his attention though, and when Pitch looked his way, he waited for him to continue. 

“There is a general belief in a concept, and then there is fullhearted belief in a being. Belief in the concept can be a powerful thing, but for older children and adults it isn’t always enough to allow them a window into our world. In younger children, it's more likely that such belief is enough for them to see. It’s  _ that _ brand of belief that keeps things like the Leprechaun or Groundhog alive-- people don’t necessarily believe in them, but they believe in the _ idea _ of them. Meanwhile, you Guardians can survive off of anything.”

Jack wanted to cut him off and tell him to not make it sound like the Guardians were roaches or something, but Pitch kept talking.

“Either way, after that there is fullhearted belief-- the kind of belief most children have, and that people like the Bennet child have. He is older now, but he still believes, he still sees. Yes?”

Jack found himself nodding along. He had never considered something like that, but thinking about it in that sort of context, it made sense. If one could believe in a concept enough to keep it alive without seeing it, it certainly would have explained how he’d existed for so long even though nobody believed in him like they did the Guardians. After all, people like Jamie’s mom, who knew “Jack Frost” as little more than an expression, still knew who he was. It also explained how Pitch could keep going on even when people didn’t believe in him specifically. 

But… there was one thing about that whole explanation that didn’t make sense to him still. He voiced as much when he shook his head at the Boogeyman.

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t tell me how you affect people. Also Jamie does believe in you, so how come he can walk right through you?”

The pleased look that had attempted to settle on Pitch’s face for whatever reason immediately soured at the reminder of the moment that had spelled his loss to the Guardians and he tsked under his breath. An expression he couldn’t quite identify swam momentarily through his eyes before disappearing under his mask of collected calm, and when he glanced down at him, Jack couldn’t help but feel like he was being assessed. Like Pitch was deciding if it was even worth it to tell him whatever he was considering answering with.

When he finally settled on a choice, he turned his attention back to the ever-darkening space between buildings where Jack could now make out the outline of a cat. His voice, when he spoke, sounded a touch different as well. Quieter. Possibly more menacing-- though it was difficult to tell because he always sounded like that on some level.

“Belief is not necessary for my survival or visibility, Jack. I require fear. Nothing more, nothing less. Without it, whether or not a child believes in me is irrelevant. It’s a perk because, as I have said many times before, there will always be fear-- and, so too, there will always be me.”

“Then why was it so important that kids believe in you and not the Guardians that you tried to destroy everyone?”

The question was out before he could think about it. He hadn’t realized it was something he’d been wanting to ask the man for a long while until it was out of his mouth, and as soon as it registered with Pitch he could see the grip on his staff grow tighter. If it was in anger or something else, he didn’t know, but he wanted to.

“Because, _ Frost _ ,” he spit the name that time, like it left a bad taste in his mouth, and Jack took a step back, “belief gives power and recognition. The Guardians know this and they covet it-- they hoard the legends and bedtime stories. Sharing the limelight isn’t something they know how to do well. Need I remind you that  _ none  _ of them truly wanted you to be part of their little group in the beginning.”

Jack couldn’t help but flinch at the reminder. It wasn’t something he liked to think about, but he should’ve known that left to his own devices, Pitch would bring up past insecurities and fears as a way to get back at someone for upsetting him. 

“After so many years in the shadows, hiding and being forced to live without a single proper believer, I deemed it time for them to be knocked down a peg or two.”

Memories of what Pitch had said at Tooth Palace and then Antarctica bubbled to the surface without warning as he said that, and for a moment doubt clouded Jack’s mind. Doubt in what the Guardians told him about Pitch only desiring power, about never telling the truth. Because Pitch had told the truth to some degree those couple of times, and what he said now matched with what he’d said before. 

But then, there had been lies sprinkled into those moments, too. Justifications for what he did. And the whole time, he had been trying to sway him over to his side of the fight. 

Tooth’s words from earlier came back to him, warning him to watch out for Pitch’s brand of manipulation, and he found himself glaring up at the man. He wondered how many times Pitch had gone over a speech like that, waiting for the day someone who actually wanted to hear the answer asked him why he did what he did. He wondered if he’d just been waiting for him to ask so that he could try and vilify the Guardians. 

He wondered if Pitch had managed to convince himself that what he’d done was justified or if he truly believed it was. Given the stories he’d heard about the Dark Ages, Pitch thirsted for power and very little else-- he didn’t care about things like fairness or balance or light, or any of the things the Guardians stood for. He was chaos and darkness. He’d probably just gotten tired of having to watch his back at every turn and decided then was as good a time as any to start a fight. After all, if what he said about how belief worked for him was true --and he had no reason to believe it wasn’t, since it made sense-- then he could always try again later.

And that line of thought made him cross his arms.

“You killed Sandy.”

“Yes.”

He agreed so casually, like it hadn’t been at all difficult. Like his doing so hadn’t torn everyone up inside and out-- like he hadn’t taken away what had felt like the first real link to the Guardians Jack had. It alarmed him, even now, to think that Pitch could hurt someone as if it was no more difficult than teleporting. 

“And you don’t think that was a step too far?”

Pitch waved his hand and finally pulled close to the cat. It hissed and growled, the hair standing on its back when Pitch knelt down next to it. “Please, Frost, it wasn’t permanent by any means-- I knew it wouldn’t be. Just like you cannot destroy fear, you cannot destroy dreams. Corrupt them, slow them down, of course. But not kill them. Sanderson is as immortal as I.”

Anything Jack had prepared to reply with died on his tongue. He had been expecting Pitch to justify what he’d done, explain that killing Sandy had somehow been for the greater good. He had not been expecting him to reveal that the dream Guardian was so similar to himself… or that killing him for good had never been his intention. Although, he wasn’t so sure he completely believed him on that, either, but he wasn’t about to say anything. The way Pitch spoke held a sense of finality to it that he couldn’t argue with. He couldn’t see the conversation going anywhere but in circles from there, with him asking about Pitch’s motives behind everything he’d ever done and Pitch responding with half-truths and casual insults.

So, instead he watched as Pitch extended a hand and tapped the cat’s nose. The effect of whatever he did was instant and the animal immediately ceased its complaining, its coat smoothing down once more. In the next moment it was shoving its face against the Boogeyman’s fingers. A small smile broke across Pitch’s face as he began scratching beneath its chin, and Jack couldn’t decide what shocked him more: the fact that the cat let Pitch touch it at all, or the fact that Pitch seemed to be enjoying himself.

It was weird, watching the Boogeyman of all people dote on an animal that wasn’t one of his nightmares, but at the same time it was kind of fun. Seeing Pitch behave like… a person, was interesting. Especially as the seconds ticked by and the cat’s purring grew louder. 

Jack tilted his head to get a better look at Pitch’s face. Oddly enough, he wore a frown that slowly shifted into a thoughtful expression. Not long after that, his hands ceased their ministrations and the cat scampered off somewhere out of sight. Pitch was sighing and Jack couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“So uh, what was all that about?”

Pitch blinked and looked down like he wasn’t expecting him to be there before straightening up again with a sniff. “Gathering information.”

“Huh?” 

Pitch waved his hand and led them out of the alley. “Animals linked to superstition-- it’s possible to communicate with them if one knows how.”

He’d expected some sort of vague answer, but that somehow made sense. He made a surprised noise in the back of his throat and studied Pitch some more as they walked. Up until then, he’d thought Pitch’s powers extended to exuding bad vibes, creating nightmares, and whatever it was he did with shadows. Despite being public enemy number one there actually wasn’t that much information on the Boogeyman’s abilities. Seeing more and more of his powers revealed was more than a little shocking. He supposed it made sense, given just how old of a being Pitch was, that he would’ve honed and developed his skills to suit his needs, but it was still crazy, just how little he knew about the guy.

Of course, all he could think to give in response was a nod. “That’s pretty cool.”

Pitch rolled his eyes and Jack turned his attention away from him. Around them, the sun was setting and people were heading indoors, adults dragging complaining children, telling them they had to because the police had put a curfew into effect. That was good, at least. Even Pitch seemed satisfied when he heard that; Jack didn’t miss the slight incline of his head.

They walked a few more minutes before Jack realized they were heading back to the woods and that he hadn’t asked what sort of information he’d gathered from the cat. It had to have been something good if they were returning to the abduction site so soon.

“Oh? Why so interested in the opinion of cats, Frost?” 

He didn’t know if Pitch was trying to be funny or difficult, but he didn’t appreciate it either way. The darker it got, the more on edge he felt-- something he was more than certain he could partially blame on the being currently by his side. He gripped his staff a bit tighter and narrowed his eyes at Pitch.

“We’re working together, remember?”

Pitch didn’t even daign looking at him when he responded, sounding as blase as usual. “As I recall, the conditions were that I assist in finding the creature. There was nothing in the contract about working together.”

Yeah, he was being difficult. Jack didn’t even know why, when a moment ago he’d been fine talking about the ins and outs of his powers. 

“Jeez, it’s like you got two different people inside of you or something,” he grumbled, pulling ahead of him. He didn’t bother checking on Pitch’s reaction. He didn’t care. If he was going to be a douche about things, there was nothing he could do to stop him. That didn’t mean he’d have to take it, though. 

Apparently something about that reaction managed to get through to the Boogeyman, because a few minutes later when they reached the outcropping of trees he sighed-- an action not so much heard, but felt when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. 

“It mentioned something smelling foul.”

It took him a moment to remember the context and when he did, Jack turned and offered him a confused frown. How exactly was something like that supposed to be helpful? 

As if sensing his thoughts, Pitch rolled his eyes and followed up. “There are only a handful of creatures who leave behind scent when they hunt.”

“Oh.” He blinked. He hadn’t known that. “Okay then. So, any ideas what we’re dealing with, then?”

“None that make sense.”

He was about to ask what he meant by that when Pitch seemed to stand to attention all of a sudden, his head whipping around them and his body tensing around his staff.

“Pitch, what--” 

“Jack, there’s a--”

They were cut off abruptly by a shriek, one that Jack had grown all too accustomed to hearing. Only this time, it was worse, because it wasn’t a dream. He didn’t know what Pitch had been trying to say, but it didn’t matter now.

“A kid’s in trouble!” 

“Wait, Frost, we don’t know--”

He was in the air before Pitch could finish, his senses on overdrive as barreled into the trees. He could waste no time if he wanted to save the kid. And he was going to save them. This wouldn’t end like last time, because he was here. He was close, and he wasn’t going to let anything happen to this one. 

If he couldn’t save this one child, what kind of Guardian was he?

* * *

“Jack!”

Pitch glared after where the boy had disappeared. It was no small inconvenience, his moving before thinking. The fact that Jack’s distress for the child’s well being muddled the initial fear he had felt from the human in the first place. Granted, it should not have been so difficult to pinpoint the location of such palpable terror, but there had been no shortage of unpleasant surprises accompanying the return of his relic. It felt like it had been an eternity since his reach had extended so far with so little effort, which made sorting through all of the different negative emotions wafting from nearly everyone in the town and neighboring cities more tedious than he’d anticipated. 

More vexing than even that, however, was the knowledge that he could have kept each and every child too afraid to even leave their homes had he had this power to begin with. As it was, this child was plain foolish, going into the woods at night when a curfew had been put into place. But then, where were her parents?

_ Worrying about little Emily’s whereabouts _ . A voice in the back of his head supplied.

_ They thought she’d gone upstairs to play. _ Another hissed.

_ Oh God, where is she?  _

_ Did she go outside? _

_ Please, God, please, don’t let her be outside... _

A snarl of his own making helped to bring him back into himself and Pitch gripped his staff tighter. Now was not the time to become distracted by all the lovely strands of fear-- that could come later. Now was the time to reign those tendrils in and direct them, use them to his advantage. 

Stepping into the shadows provided a better anchor for doing so, and it only took a few seconds to locate the target.

The girl was still screaming, but that was nothing when compared to the pure terror that wafted off of her like freshly baked dessert-- it had been far too long since he’d experienced such a particular brand of fear. There was something to be said for the unique flavor that came from the gasping breaths and tears and  _ blood-- _

_ “No.” _

His growl echoed in his own head and the creeping shadows backed away, taking those thoughts with them. Now was not the time nor place. Not now or ever again, if he had any say. 

Still, there was something that could be said about the effectiveness of such thoughts. There was no denying that fact when the child came into view, running as fast as her little legs would carry her. 

Pitch remained in the shadows long enough to make out the distant shape of the thing pursuing the girl. As it dashed ever closer, gaining on her with each thundering step, Pitch threw himself from the shadows, eyes wide in spite of himself. 

That creature… it was like nothing he had ever seen before. All that writhing black flesh encasing a bulging stomach that was carried by too many legs. Sleek and almost wet at first glance, and the darkest shade of night. It shouldn’t have existed, whatever  _ it  _ was. That was a strange realization as well-- not recognizing what the creature was even supposed to be.

Even as part of him wanted nothing more than to study the being, the more rational area was reminding him that he could not allow the child to be harmed. He was no Guardian, but he certainly did not condone the murder of little girls by rogue whatever-the-hells-that-thing-was. Death may have been a natural part of life, but there were some forms of it that were not meant to be permitted. 

That, and he did not wish to deal with Frost should the girl be harmed. He could feel the boy’s mounting panic as it began pulsing along the same lines as the girl’s and knew that Jack had seen the creature as well. But there was no way the Guardian would reach her on time. Not when the creature was all but nipping at her heels. 

Fortunately for all of them, night was when he was strongest. 

The girl shrieked once more as the creature lunged for her. It was quick. He was faster, and just before the creature could sink its teeth into her Pitch shot through the shadows and scooped her up before rolling out of the way.

That had been the plan, at any rate. 

There had been no accounting for what to do when his hands snatched thin air as she phased right through him. 

A chill shot through him the same moment a wet snapping echoed off the trees.

_ “Emily!”  _

The name escaped him without thought as he tried grabbing for her again and for half a second, he thought she may have heard him, her dark hair whipping around as her eyes seemed to meet his. Still he could find no purchase on her arm and his fingers passed through her uselessly the same moment elongated jaws closed around her little body and around his appendage.

Needle-like teeth piercing his forearm pulled a cry from him and Pitch ripped himself away from the creature the same instant it veered away from him. And just like that, the fight that never was ended and the creature vanished. 

Past the ringing in his ears, he distantly noticed that he could no longer sense anything from Emily and that Jack had finally caught up, calling his name. The spirit was flitting around, his distress a touch overwhelming in its totality and Pitch was aware of the fact that he should have been answering the boy’s questions when he asked what had happened. Oddly enough, he could do little else but stare at the flayed hand which had failed to save the child.

From the corner of his eye, he could see small splatters of red on the ground being slowly tainted with the black dripping from his arm. Jack seemed to spot them the same instant because he stopped his frantic to-and-froing and froze before him.

A dozen emotions washed over his face, chief among them being horror over what he’d seen and was only now registering. Anger followed soon after, and that one was easy enough to catch as blue eyes darkened and frost crawled threateningly up his staff.

“Why didn’t you do anything?”

He clenched his jaw, a sneer pulling his lips taught against his teeth. He owed Frost no explanation and he refused to give it when the boy thought to come after him as if any of this was _ his  _ fault. If anything, this was the Guardians fault. If they hadn’t beat him back so thoroughly in the past, that girl might have believed in him and the entire ordeal would have had a very different outcome. The disbelief in him they encouraged amongst children was what had caused the rescue to go so awry. 

“What? Nothing to say for yourself?” Jack slammed the butt of his staff into the soil and icy wind bit at his skin. He bit back a hiss when the cold slowed the healing his arm was attempting. “Or is this what you wanted to happen?”

“Oh, is that something your precious Guardians put into your thick skull?” he drawled while holding his own staff closer as the air grew steadily colder. Whether or not Jack’s intent was to be threatening he did not care. He refused to be blamed for yet another thing he could not control. And he did, in fact, have a sneaking suspicion that the spirit’s assumptions had something to do with things the Guardians told him. It would not be the first time any of them pinned things out of his control on him. He was an easy scapegoat.

“Well, let me assure you, Frost,” he continued, “this outcome is most unideal.”

“You did nothing to prevent it!” 

The pulsing pain shooting into his shoulder made him glare. He had nothing to prove to the brat, who was obviously going to believe what he wished, but Pitch still threw his arm out to showcase the bleeding canyons the creature’s teeth had created, knitting themselves together but already having painted his skin a brackish color. 

“Does this look like nothing?!” 

His sudden movement had an adverse effect and Pitch gasped when Jack brought the crook of his staff down on the offered appendage. A new kind of burning mingled with the old pain and he pulled the arm tight against his chest while throwing a handful of shadow at Jack. He couldn’t blame the boy for being startled and reacting on instinct, but he refused to be attacked by the brat.

Of course, that message did not seem to make it Jack’s way. He dodged the defense and shot ice towards his face. Pitch ducked out of the way and growled. As satisfying as it would have been to knock some sense into the foolish Guardian, he did not want to spend more time in the wooded area than necessary. Not until he had more time to figure out what it was he’d seen. There were only so many lesser beings that could injure someone as old as himself, and he was not keen on sticking around to find out if it hungered for more than children. If Frost has half a mind, he wouldn’t be either. 

It was obvious there was little truly going through the spirit’s mind, however, when he swung at him again. It was too wide of an arc -- _ sloppy- _ \- and Pitch deflected it with his staff, catching Jack’s with the hook and slamming the boy’s weapon into the ground, dragging Jack with it. 

As soon as Jack’s stomach connected with the earth, Pitch slammed the butt of his staff between his shoulders to hold him in place. 

“Calm down, Jack. This isn’t helping anyone.”

“Like you care.” Jack struggled to escape and Pitch rolled his eyes, pushing down harder until he heard the spirit whimper.

“It may surprise you, but-  _ augh! _ ” 

Pitch released his staff when fire laced up his palm and down his back. Jack took the opportunity to move and retrieve the relic from the ground, but Pitch paid him little attention as he stared at the mark that had etched itself like a brand into his hand. 

A four leaf clover. The damn Oath.

Of course. Of course it would harm him and not Jack, even though it had been the brat who’d been doing the attacking. He cackled softly. Because was that not exactly what he should have expected? 

“Pitch? Are you okay?” 

At least Frost no longer looked as if he was going to attack him. No, now he stared with something almost like concern on his face and Pitch wanted to laugh at him, because he’d realized his mistake a bit too late. If he or the Guardians thought he was going to work with them now, they were delusional. If all they planned on doing was accusing him of causing the deaths of children every time something went wrong, then the deal was off. He may have been the villain of their story, but he would never go that far again. No, he’d had enough of their “teamwork” to last a decade or two-- the meager scraps of power weren’t worth the misery.

What Jack may have meant when he stretched his arm out --offering his relic back, perhaps-- Pitch did not remain to see. 

The distant call for him to come back went ignored as he let the familiar warmth of the shadows envelope him. Jack could go back to the Guardians and explain to them his failure-- how he had jumped to conclusions too quickly and cost them what they had made seem like their last chance at figuring out what was happening to the children. 


	5. V

Jack was a fool. 

How dare that speck of an immortal accuse him of causing the death of a child when he’d been flitting around uselessly. Had Pitch had half the mind a moment prior he would have alerted the boy to the fact that he was just as culpable for the situation they’d found themselves in-- if not moreso, considering he’d rushed into the forest without a moment of thought. Had Jack listened to him perhaps they could both have gotten to the girl and been able to save her. But no, like all the Guardians before him the boy had decided to place all blame on him because it was easier than owning up to his mistakes.

Well, now his mistake had cost him Pitch’s assistance. And he doubted Jack would make much headway without him.

Pitch growled in equal measures frustration and pain as he paced the outskirts of Burgess. Without his staff and his power being sapped by healing he hadn’t the power to teleport all the way back to his lair, much to his chagrin. 

Glaring at the punctures in his arm did little to soothe the swirling rage in his stomach but it did provide him a momentary distraction from it. Drool burned like acid as healing layers of skin pushed it out of the wound and to the surface. As it gathered over newly closed wounds and slid off like water off a leaf Pitch watched it leave a scorch mark. The pain of it wasn’t nearly as intense as the interest such a phenomenon dragged from him. It was rare for a creature to not only be able to injure him but to leave a lasting impression-- Toothiana was the last one to do such a thing when she knocked his tooth free. But even that hadn’t bled…

A scoff built in his throat and Pitch ripped off his tattered sleeve and used it to wipe off the black stains left by the now drying fluid. Blood was such an inconvenience, but at last it didn’t stain his clothes. It was the small things in life.

The small things. Yes, like children.

_ Emily. _

The name presented itself without permission and Pitch frowned at the treeline in the distance. The feeling of her phasing through his outstretched hand left him curling and uncurling his fingers as his mind whirled around itself like dancing shadows. As scared as she had been, he had not been the one on her mind. Nothing had been, and that perhaps was the most concerning fact of all. 

Without fear or belief he was nothing to the people of the world, he remembered explaining that to Jack. The rules were the same for others like him to an extent, even if he was the most powerful entity, yet for the creature who had snatched the little girl up none had existed. He had peered into her heart and mind and seen mortal terror, generalized fear of dark and being hunted and wanted parents, but no entity was named in any of them. The only real fact was that her fear of it had trumped her fear of him. It was a curiosity and insult unlike any he’d come across.

Not that any of it mattered in the end because it was no longer his problem. The mystery was the sole problem of Jack and his merry band of liars. 

That was what he told himself as he turned his back on the town and harnessed the darkness around him as a secondary cloak, preparing to traverse the shadows until he could find an acceptable cave close by to recover. Before he could fully commit to that plan, however, a nagging reminder that if this problem was left to the Guardians it might never be solved and some upstart entity would be left free and clear to continue stealing his meals.  _ His _ power.

It was that line of thinking that found him returning to the site of Emily’s demise before it could be tainted by local law enforcement. That is, if Jack hadn’t already done that job for them.

Reappearing in the spot where he’d left the Guardian, Pitch surveyed the scene. Knowing what had happened allowed him to see details he may have overlooked otherwise, like the small bits of blood in the dirt, preserved only by the thin layering of ice left behind from his and Jack’s little tiff. When he knelt down to investigate the frozen blood he assumed to be his own, Pitch expected to find very little so when he saw the purple coloring instead of the expected black, his interest was piqued. Pitch gently pried the dirty ice from the ground, careful to keep the bloody area intact. What he expected to find upon closer inspection he did not know, but it certainly wasn’t the small black particles he found. 

To a human eye they may not have been detectable, but his keen vision picked it out as foreign. It wasn’t dirt, that much immediately apparent in the way it glinted when held just right against the slivers of moonlight that penetrated the forest canopy. In fact, the longer Pitch stared at it the more he realized it greatly resembled sand. Black sand.

He scoffed at the observation and dropped the piece of ice, its shattering of all potential evidence noticed only in the corner of his eye. If black sand had indeed been what he’d seen then there was absolutely no reason to keep it around for Jack to find should he come back. He had enough trouble without having to deal with the boy pointing accusing fingers in his direction.

What was more, Pitch was entirely too sure that the only being capable of producing nightmares was he. That alone was enough to aggravate him because it meant who or whatever was doing these killings was somehow mimicking him. It would have been flattering had the execution been a touch more sophisticated. As it stood it was just insulting.

However, that line of thinking only put him into an even more perplexed state of mind. Considering everything that had come to surface about the creature, the single logical conclusion would be that he had been the one perpetrating the crime. 

“Absurd.” He shook his head. There was no conceivable way he could have done this-- and no discernible motive either. 

An irrational part of his mind screamed “fearlings” and he shoved it back into its cage with a derisive growl. Fearlings were extinct everywhere but inside him, that was a fact. However…

That line of thinking adhered to the forefront of his mind like a fly to a web and Pitch let himself delve further into that pool. As far as he knew there had not been any new urban legends going around-- the last one he could remember needing to add to his shapeshifting repeteur had been that ridiculous Slenderman. No new monsters had been born in his time in hiding, at least not any that had gotten big enough to hit his radar.

Perhaps it was a local issue.

Of course if it was that left him with a new set of difficulties. Namely that if he intended to make any headway with his investigation he would need to be able to converse with more than the local cat population. 

Which would prove to be difficult without the visibility perks that Jack had.

A growl rose in his throat at the idea that he needed anyone associated with his Old Friend’s  _ chosen _ ones. Denying himself the chance to even consider the thought was the best course of action and Pitch knew it was the correct one. Would it make finding answers all the more difficult? Naturally. It was nothing he couldn’t handle, however, and thus not something to agonize over. 

Better to work alone than hazard Jack’s smug attitude should he come back to him with his tail between his legs. His pride recoiled at the very notion.

The sudden drop in temperature acted as a precursor to the arrival of the Winter spirit and Pitch rolled his eyes. 

“Speak of the devil…” he muttered before straightening to his full imposing height as the boy approached with a touch of caution.

“So…” he started and Pitch raised a single brow. When Jack continued he had the decency to at least appear repentant. “Um, did you figure it out?”

Having expected an apology, Pitch sniffed, contempt dripping from his tongue as he looked down his nose at Jack. “‘Fraid not. I hadn’t the chance.”

“Right.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck and Pitch wondered how he’d survived so long in the world of cutthroat entities when he wore his heart on his sleeve like that. 

“Look, I know I probably overreacted earlier.”

Pitch snorted. “Probably?” 

“Okay, I did, whatever. I’m… I’m sorry, okay?”

While he had been preparing to laugh in the guardian’s face at whatever excuses he made for his behavior, Pitch had not been prepared to receive the apology he sought. For the subsequent swallowing moment he was left silent. When had it been since someone admitted doing him wrong, he wondered. Long enough that he no longer quite remembered how to react appropriately. 

It was moments such as these that Pitch remembered why he had been so drawn to the boy during previous encounters. Yes, knowing that persuading him to join him and leave the Guardians would’ve led to their downfall had been a major driving force in his initial attempt to befriend him, but after a time it had been more than just that. Jack was like him-- someone whose past self was killed, molded until he became something entirely new. Both their cores remained the same but their individual unique experiences had created similarly lonely creatures. They were alike; understood each other. Jack knew what it was to not be trusted or believed in.

Pitch would never throw himself a pity party after his previously failed attempt, and he certainly was not going to say something like “thank you” nor get sappy and foolish enough to think that Jack was on his side, but the singular gesture of humility left Pitch in a better mood. A helpful one, even.

With that in mind, he nodded in acknowledgement before sliding back into conversation about their plight.

“This creature is intelligent, whatever it is-- or at the very least it wants us to believe it is.”

“How do you mean?” Jack tilted his head until it touched his staff. Pitch eyed where the wood glowed blue faintly and shook off the jealousy attempting to take root. He doubted he would be getting his own relic back any time soon, oath or no oath. 

“Pitch?”

“Think about it, Jack.” Pitch sighed, “This thing hunts at night, which means it is at least aware of the risks it poses itself by showing itself in the light. It lures children one at a time-- whether that is a conscious choice or not, it is a clever one which implies that it could not handle chasing more than one at a time. It also had enough presence of mind to make itself scarce after we arrived.”

“Those all sound like animal instincts to me.” He was frowning and Pitch mirrored the expression.

“Yes, but this is no animal. At least not a normal one.”

“Okay. So… what do we do with that?”

“It means that if we intend to gain any useful information without using live bait--”

“Not happening.”

“--we need to speak with… children.” 

Pitch was certain that his distaste for the proposed affair was palpable, but Jack was at least intelligent enough not to focus on it. Instead he nodded as he internally pieced together the reasoning behind it. Pitch rolled his eyes after a moment and supplied his earlier thinking about localized urban legends.

“You think this could just be like… what, a chupacabra?” He chuckled at the end of that and Pitch narrowed his eyes.

“Do not take the concept of local myths so lightly, Frost,” he snapped, amazed once again by the ignorance of younger spirits. 

Jack flinched at the tone but didn’t let it cow him past that. “Right. Look, it’s just weird is all. I’ve never heard of anything that hangs around Burgess.”

“I doubt it’s something so simple.”

Jack shot him a questioning look that Pitch ignored for favor of walking towards the town. Dawn would arrive sooner than later and he was not keen on spending any longer in the woods than he had to. 

“Where are you going?” Jack laughed as he flew to catch up with him.

Pitch fixed him a flat look. “Walking.”

“I got that,” Jack huffed, “I mean why don’t you just teleport.”

The internal debate as to whether he should strangle the boy or ignore him lasted longer than it should have, but he eventually settled on an in between compromise.

“Because, Frost,” Pitch ground out, “I am only able to do so much without my relic after needing to heal myself.”

“Oh right!” 

Before Pitch could ask what he was shouting about, Jack took off somewhere above the cover of trees and disappeared. Pitch felt his eye twitch and for the remainder of his walk back to town he composed a lengthy lecture about decorum and how Jack was severely lacking in the qualities that built a proper conversationalist. A followup one regarding what did and did not constitute behaviors considered rude began building up as well when a gust of wind knocked his robes violently against his ankles. A second after the slap of bare feet on asphalt sounded.

Pitch bared his teeth, about to launch into both lectures simultaneously only for all words to lodge in his throat when he saw what Jack had brought with him… and was now offering back.

Reaching out to grab the staff and receiving no resistance when it left pale hands was a foreign experience that Pitch filed away for future consideration. Jack, seeming to sense his confusion, only shrugged.

“A deal’s a deal. Just don’t whack me again and we’ll be good.”

Not for the first time Pitch appreciated that while Jack was a part of the Guardians, he was not completely tainted by their bad blood. There was a strand of grey in Jack’s world of white moralities and not for the first time Pitch wondered just what had to be done in order to darken it a shade further. 

A problem for another day, perhaps.

From that point on the two of them walked the length of the town, Jack leading them down residential areas, talking nonsense that Pitch paid no mind until the sun rose high enough that the humans began rising from their ever-pleasant dream worlds. At that point Pitch demanded to be taken to the nearest useful child. 

The order had earned an admonishing scowl from Jack that he wholly ignored. If he was not permitted to tell Jack how to talk about the Guardians then there was no chance that Jack would change how he viewed the young mortals.

It was unsurprising when Jack’s path eventually brought them to the neighborhood that Pitch immediately recognized as the street the Bennet brat and his little friends lived. Whether or not it was meant as a reminder of his previous defeat or not Pitch didn’t much care-- it was unappreciated either way.

“Okay, so I’ll grab them and while I do you can just… stay here.” The way he put his hands up towards him as if he were a predator to be soothed made Pitch consider terrifying one of the children on principle alone. He stayed only because he was more interested in finishing the task at hand than being petty. It was highly tempting though.

When Jack finally came back into view he was trailed by a familiar group of children that watched him with doe eyes. The whole sight made him want to gag and Pitch only resisted because he was more keen on listening in to what the boy was saying to brats. Melting into the shadows in a single breath and travelling to Jack’s in the next was invigorating and Pitch took a moment to relish the ease with which he could move around when he had his relic on hand. How he had missed this kind of power.

“... so don’t freak out, but I’ve got Pitch here with me and--”

“Pitch?” The Bennet boy gaped, “Why? Why would you bring him here?”

“Hey, relax bud.” Jack stopped the group a moment to bend down and place a hand on his shoulder. Pitch rolled his eyes. “It’s fine, I promise. He’s the boogeyman, not the devil.”

Pitch saw his moment and seized it, rising from the shadow and taking half a second to enjoy the taste of each individual flavor of fear from the children before he leaned down to purr into the spirit’s ear.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Frost.”

To his credit Jack didn’t startle as violently as Pitch had been hoping, only stiffening briefly before laughing lightly and tilting his head so that Pitch would see his smirk. 

“I am, though,” he chirped back.

Pitch sighed, a put upon sound as he stepped around the boy so that the children could take him in properly, enjoying the general unease they all felt. It was gratifying, the alarm from those that professed a mere year ago that he was not someone they feared. What had happened to renew it among them he wasn’t sure, but he was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were. 

Even Jamie, the true believer who had once stared him down defiantly took a step closer to Jack when Pitch shot them a predatory smile. Jack rolled his eyes at the display but said nothing to dissuade his actions.

“Jack, what is he doing here?” The girl who’d birthed his first nightmare, Onyx, spoke up as she fixed Pitch was a glare. It was admirable, her bravery, even if it was false.

“Well,” Jack started slowly, “we have a bit of a truce right now.”

“A _ truce? _ ” A wince marred his features when the cacophony of children shouting together rang in his ears.

“He’s helping us find the missing kids.” Jack’s laugh only added to his general irritation with the situation, but Pitch still appreciated that he cleared things up. 

“Isn’t he the one that’s been stealing them?” The other girl, Pippa if he’d heard correctly, accused. It sent a ripple of ‘yeahs’ throughout the group and Pitch rolled his eyes. A prepared speech about new philanthropic hobbies when Jack had the presence of mind to look a bit guilty when he supplied the information for the children.

“No. No, I thought the same thing at first but I was wrong.” A small look Pitch couldn’t quite discern was sent his way. He narrowed his eyes to be safe and Jack rolled his. “We made a deal that if he helps us then he can have his holiday back.”

“His…?”

“Halloween.”

Jamie blinked, clearly surprised as everyone whenever they heard that the Nightmare King owned more than just nightmares. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Jack shrugged as if the whole ordeal was nothing to fuss over. “So he has to ask you guys some questions. I’ll be right here the whole time, so please answer him the best way you can.”

A delicious wave of apprehension swept over the group that Pitch breathed in and savored. Jack seemed to be the only one aware of the change in his demeanor when he stepped forward, taking his cue, and fixed the children with a toothy grin.

“It seems we are to meet again,” he sighed, “I trust I’ve haunted the outskirts of your dreams?”

The bespectacled one shrank back, his answering spike of fear making Pitch’s grin widen. In consequence the air around him chilled enough that frost began building at the hem of his robes. 

“Pitch,” Jack warned, “don’t make me regret this.”

Offering a long suffering sigh, Pitch closed his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. “Very well. Ruin all the fun, why don’t you, Frost. Remind me what you’re the guardian of again?”

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious.” Jack’s deadpan coaxed a sharp laugh out of him, resulting in the startling of all the children as an added bonus. 

His own entertainment had, Pitch sobered up and let his expression darken like an adult getting to the bottom of the mystery of who colored on the walls. “Now then, children. What talk of monsters or myths amongst yourselves has arisen in the last couple of months?”

“What kind of talk?” Jamie asked.

“The unusually obsessed kind.”

“Ummm…”

One of them --Caleb?-- tapped the group leader’s shoulder. “What about Jessica?” 

“Oh yeah!” Jamie’s eyes lit up and the boy began going off on a tangent about his group of Cryptid Hunter Club, and some of the members. “Jessica is obsessed with Native American mythology and she was like ‘Jamie this is totally a Wendigo’ and I thought that made a lot of sense. Like, it’d be weird if it was in our town but it fits and… yeah.” 

A chill that had nothing to do with Jack’s presence passed through him and Pitch pinched the bridge of his nose at the mention of the creature. The ignorance of the children knew no bounds, he decided. Then: “How many people believe this Jessica?”

Jamie shifted uncomfortably, likely feeling the shift in the mood of the shadows as Pitch resisted lecturing them all on their cultural insensitivity. “I mean, I’m not sure if I believe it, but it makes sense. I think a lot of other kids at school buy it, though.”

“Fuck.” Pitch hissed, earning an alarmed shout from Jack and a “Hey! Bad!” that he completely ignored.

A Wendigo… it was not anything Pitch wanted to consider, given the troubling genesis of the creature and the lack of geographical sense it made; however, with the claws and teeth and lack of child bodies found after being taken.... It did make _some_ _kind_ of sense. Even so, no amount of belief should have been able to manifest one so far from its origin-- especially when the belief of the creature occurred after the first disappearance. It also did not explain the black sand.

Black sand…

“Who here has had nightmares since children started disappearing?”

“You mean aside from the school related anxiety dreams?”

Pitch rolled his eyes at Pippa, unappreciative of her sarcasm. 

“Well then, no. No nightmares.”

“Sandman keeps them away.” Cupcake crossed her arms over her chest and Pitch sneered at her and the mention of his rival.

“W-what about the… the fog and creepy feelings?” The nervous one stuttered out the question to his group and Pitch latched onto him instantly.

“Explain what that’s supposed to mean.”

“Well… nobody has been feeling s-safe. Outside. Not even when we’re in a group.”

“Are you feeling that unease now?”

“We feel it every second of the day,” the other boy, the one with the afro whose name Pitch hadn’t the slightest clue of, confirmed.

“Even my parents have been on edge,” Jamie added.

“Like something put a cloud over the whole town and it’s giving everyone the creeps.” Pippa nodded.

If anything further was said on the matter Pitch didn’t hear it. He was too busy frowning and trying to pinpoint an entity that could do all of those things. He was the only one who fit, though. Everything the children described reeked of his handiwork: the putting people on edge, making them feel unsafe in their own homes, going after adults and children alike… it had Pitch Black written all over it.

Yet he’d done none of it.

Jack came to stand beside him, shooting him a look that was as confused as Pitch felt-- obviously he’d been thinking along a similar line. 

“Any ideas what this might be now?”

“Possibly…”

It was obvious to him then that the children would be of no further help, so when Pitch turned on his heel and walked away it should have surprised no one. Jack made up for his abrupt departure with a hasty goodbye to his charges and ran to catch up. Pitch paid him no mind as he continued to mull over the information he’d been presented.

Whatever the creature was, it had been able to mimic not only his work, but that of a Wendigo’s-- at least enough to fool children into believing that was what it was. It always seemed to come back to that powerful force of Belief. 

“Hey!”

“Quiet, Jack.”

Ignoring him completely, Jack continued, “So do you think it’s a Wen--”

“Silence!” Pitch let his hiss pierce the air, leaving a startling silence in its wake. “Don’t say its name.”

“What? Why not?” Jack clutched his staff a bit tighter, perhaps unconsciously as the rest of him seemed at ease, and Pitch knew he had to be feeling the tension caused by the mere mention of the creature earlier.

“For one, it's disrespectful to the culture and for another, names have powers you wouldn’t understand. Do not say it’s name.”

“Okay… but do you think it’s… that?”

Pitch sighed. It was a difficult question to answer completely. As he drew various conclusions on what it could be based on the little information he had, he decided there was no answer he could give the boy that would be satisfying.

“I think the children believe it is.”

His counterpart tilted his head. “It’s not?”

“How should I know?”

“Cuz you’re the Boogeyman? You sorta know all things spooky, right?”

“I also know Belief is a powerful thing. You should be well aware of that, too.”

“Wait.” When Jack’s stepping in front of him forced him to stop walking, Pitch huffed. “So are you trying to say it’s not that, but the kids believe it is so that’s what it’s acting like?”

Pitch shot him a look that told the boy that his guess was as good as any. “Like I said: Belief is powerful.”


	6. VI

Everything could be attributed to the Belief of the children.

As soon as Jack had verbalized it that morning it had been the only line of thinking Pitch found himself able to latch onto. The longer he dwelled on it the more sense it made. After all, the timeline fit. According to later information he’d had Jack dig up from the children, the Jessica girl had mentioned a Wendigo the same night the first child had disappeared. After that point, there had been a slew of attacks with blood and drag marks being found in the woods. No bodies had shown up as of yet but Pitch knew it was only a matter of time. When the ties between the child and their fear were severed it almost always spelled death. 

That in and of itself would’ve been concerning enough without the addition of nightmare sand. None of it made sense until he came to the conclusion that he was tied to the creature somehow. This somehow was what left him most conflicted. After all, the creature appeared to have come about by the Belief of the children, and there were four beings which could be sustained through fear alone: himself, his own creations, Fae, and Krampus-- all the others required some kind of sacrifice or violence. 

Now Krampus was out for obvious reasons-- wrong location, wrong time of year. The Fae would be discarded as well, seeing as he had been in that wood and had felt no presence associated with them. That left himself, which obviously did not track for a myriad of reasons. So, it had to be something he created then.

… Only, Pitch had not been able to think of anything he’d created recently that would do something so vile as this. 

“Well, what have you created recently?” Jack asked, alerting Pitch to the fact that he’d begun musing aloud at some point. 

“Absolutely nothing.” He knew he sounded bitter about that fact and cared not one iota. When such a reply earned him a disbelieving frown he tacked on somewhat reluctantly: “It’s not as if I’ve had the power to do something like that.”

“Gotcha.” Jack let the conversation die off which Pitch found himself appreciating. It was odd sometimes, how simple it was to interact with the boy.

It was true that he would always be bitter about his defeat and subsequent humiliation when his Nightmares overwhelmed him, but when it came to the Jack Frost aspect of it he was less bitter and more… well, not hurt but… offended perhaps. 

_ Rejected. _

The cruel whisper came from deep within him and Pitch shook his head, fingers tightening around his relic to remind that empathetic urchin dwelling inside who was in charge. In his distraction he nearly tripped over Jack when the boy whirled on him with wide eyes. Pitch halted awkwardly and raised a quizzical brow.

“What if it’s because this is something you created a while ago?”

“Oh?” A more genuine curiosity took over and he forgot any annoyance that may have tried to rise over almost tripping.

“Well think about it,” Jack said, “If it’s something that has clear attachments to you but isn’t something you could’ve made recently, it stands to reason that you still made it, just before, when your powers were… powerful.”

“Back when I made things that ran off instinct akin to my own.” It was less a question than it was a general statement but Jack still nodded and perked up. It made Pitch wonder how often he spoke and the Guardians didn’t listen.

“Exactly!”

The idea was not a bad one-- in fact, the longer he entertained it, the more Pitch saw the merit in it. Right up until the idea of black sand came back into play. Then a realization dawned on him. 

It was something he had created. Something that ran off instinct, fed on fear. Something that had gotten out of his control-- something that had perhaps tasted its master’s fear and decided to go after something just as powerful.

Something that could be warped by the fears and beliefs of children.

A new feeling bubbled up in his chest then and Pitch felt his teeth sharpening in his mouth as a growl built in his throat. By all calculations, Pitch knew his own fear could’ve sustained a Nightmare for several months if it paced itself. It would explain why he hadn’t been able to call them all back when he’d come to. It was almost ironic, how the Nightmares he’d created could end up being what showed him up in the scaring department. 

Even more perfect was that if it was, in fact, one of his Nightmares, then the Guardians were just as culpable as he-- even more so now that he considered it. After all, they had been the ones to push his fear over the edge and send his creations dragging him into a hole.

“Uh, Pitch? You good?” Jack had himself in the air, a few safe feet away as he observed what Pitch knew had to be an interesting spectacle of micro-expressions flitting across his face. And perhaps the harsher glow of his eyes had unnerved the spirit a touch. 

Pitch smirked at the idea that his subtle movements worried Jack more than when he outright threatened him. Perhaps that was to always be the nature of their interactions. It was a bit of a challenge, determining where he and Jack stood. But wouldn’t it be interested to find out whose side he would take when Pitch told him what he’d just concluded.

“Is that a yes?” Jack looked positively apprehensive and that made Pitch’s smirk turn to a grin, showing off his newly sharpened incisors. “Heh, why are you looking at me like that? Pitch?”

He stepped forward and Jack slowly floated back. “Pitch?”

There had to be a point in which Jack understood that he was playing, but whether that was reached before or after Pitch grabbed his arm and dragged him through the shadows was unknown. Either way, he was having a marvelous time. Especially when they surfaced from their trip atop North’s globe and Pitch found Jack clinging to the front of his robes. He looked so childish in that moment that it took Pitch longer than he would ever admit to take a step back and pull the boy’s hands off of him.

Thankfully, the only one privy to the moment had been one of the yetis, who was in the process of lumbering off, presumably to wherever North was, shouting in that daft language about how the ‘shadow bastard’ was back. It pleased Pitch to no end that nearly all species had some kind of special way they referred to him.

North and his posse arrived in time to see Jack smacking a snickering Pitch away with his staff. “Warn. Me. Next. Time. You. Ass.” 

He punctuated each word with a new attack aimed at Pitch’s head and shoulders and he allowed it only because he was having a time ducking and dodging all of them. 

“Tell me, Jack, are you nauseous?” Pitch cackled.

“Oh, you’d just love that.”

“I won’t deny it.”

“Why did you even bring us here?”

“Yes, we would also like to know.” As soon as North’s voice echoed off the high ceilings, Pitch cleared his throat and took a step to the side of Jack so that they weren’t in such friendly proximity.

“I know what your mystery creature is.”

“You do?” Jack’s voice was drowned out by the rest of the Guardians asking the same thing. To spite them all, Pitch specifically only addressed the boy when he answered.

“Yes, Jack. It seems one of my Nightmares has decided to cause trouble in the last place it remembers existing.”

“Wait, this is one’a _ your _ Nightmares?” Bunnymund pointed an accusing finger. “What happened to you not knowin’ what was goin’ on?”

“Because I didn’t.” Pitch thought he deserved an award for being so calm in the face of the Guardian’s sudden influx of anger. “I lost track of my Nightmares the last time we all saw each other in Burgess. You remember how that went-- I know you do, Sandman.”

He relished the glare and head shake the dream Guardian sent him. Anything that could upset his rival pleased him, juvenile as the notion may have been. The others were giving him varying degrees of hateful looks as well but Pitch paid them no mind. When he glanced at Jack the boy only shook his head, disapproving but otherwise giving no indication on whether he was upset or not-- not that Pitch cared one way or the other. It was just interesting.

“But I come with joyous news!” He tap danced to the edge of the globe before sliding down to the floor. A breeze told him Jack followed close behind. It was fascinating how the boy kept by his side despite being so adamant that the Guardians were the ones he cared for. It was likely he was reading into things but it was still… nice.

“I know how to stop it.”

“Well?” North crossed his arms over his chest after Pitch let that information sit in the air a moment. “Don’t leave us in suspense.” 

“Very well.” Pitch sighed, acting put upon by the request. “I can stop the Nightmare now that I have my relic-- I can use the power it provides me to subdue it.”

“Haha!” North clapped his hands together and Pitch’s face fell, a quirk in his brow giving away just how much he wanted the man to never open his mouth again. “This news is good.” 

“Yes, yes, it’s wonderful. However, seeing as the children have come to the conclusion that this creature is of a more dangerous and mythical origin, her own power has been grown substantially. I do believe I will have to draw her out. After all, we wouldn’t want to fight her on her own turf.”

A hush swept through the group as his words sank in. Toothiana, unsurprising, gathered the intention behind his plan first.

“Draw her out how, Pitch?” She eyed him with clear suspicion, which Pitch could not fault her for completely. After all, given their history she would know all about his less than moral means of drawing enemies out.

“She is likely driven by the taste of fear,” as soon as the words left his mouth he could see understanding dawn on the rest of them and Jack groaned softly beside him. Pitch smiled. “I will have to create a substantial amount of it in order to get her to leave her home.”

“No,” came the resounding answer from all but North and Jack, who seemed to be giving it genuine thought. Pitch raised a brow at Sanderson, who continually underlined his little “ **Ø** ” sign. Of all the Guardians he could see the validity of his adamant refusal, considering what had happened the last time he’d been allowed to turn dreams to nightmares. Still…

“How very selfish of you all.”

“Selfish?” Bunnymund’s nose twitched. “You wanna talk about selfish, mate? You really wanna go there?”

Pitch met his eyes, making his eyes glint with a catlike warning when the Guardian’s hand went to his boomerang holster. That made him pause and Pitch took a moment to appreciate his power. It was not until his paw left the weapon that Pitch looked away from him and addressed the room, stalking around them as he informed them unkindly of the harsh truths regarding their situation.

“This is the fault of everyone in this room. If the Guardians had not been so _ selfish _ in draining me of my powers so completely this whole debacle could have been avoided.”

“Pitch, that’s not fair,” Jack put a hand on his shoulder to halt his movements and Pitch resisted the urge to hiss and shrug him off. At least until he heard the rest of what he had to say. Besides, it was entertaining seeing the disbelieving looks on the rest of the Guardians’ faces whenever Jack dared to get near him. “The only reason they-- we had to weaken you so much was because you were trying to destroy everyone.”

“And why do you think I did that, Jack?” He spoke quietly so as to let nobody else hear, which Pitch knew threw the boy off more than anything. “Why did I get to the point of thinking I had to destroy them to keep believers?”

Jack’s throat worked as he considered that and Pitch felt satisfied that he got to plant that seed in his mind. With that done, he turned back to the rest of the fool’s brigade and schooled his expression.

“So there we have it: we’re all at fault.”

He let that sink in a moment. It was odd, watching guilt cross all of the faces before him-- an expression seldom, if ever, seen before in his enemies. It was refreshing and no small degree of satisfying to see them all slowly realize that they’d sunk as low as the Boogeyman and put children in danger. What that must have felt like… he sorely wished to know, if only to feel all the more vindicated.

“Now,” he said once he was sufficiently sated, “how are we going to fix it? That is, assuming you still want my help.”

“Well, you  _ are _ bound by oath to help us,” Jack reminded, “so yeah.”

“And we all thank you for that reminder,  _ Frost _ .”

“Okay enough.” Toothiana’s feet had found the floor at some point, betraying just how tired the whole exchange thus far had left her. “What exactly do you need to do to fix it?”

“It’s not what you need to do, so much as what you don’t.”

Bunnymund’s ears pinned back. “So we’re supposed to just stay out of the way and hope what you’re saying is true and works?”

“You are the Guardian of  _ Hope _ ,” Pitch sneered, “I’d think that wouldn’t be too difficult for you.”

If smugness could waft off someone, Pitch knew the Pooka would have been smelling it right then, especially when Jack joined his side of the argument. 

“Remember guys, I’m still gonna be there to help. Nothing’s gonna get out of hand. I promise. We can tr… we can let him do what he needs to catch this thing.”

_ Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jack _ . 

Pitch shot the boy a mild look that if studied, one could say was somewhat fond. He hadn’t missed the way he’d stumbled on his words and always told this group that they could trust him. Trust. He could’ve laughed at the notion.

Displeasure could still be read loud and clear in the room, but Pitch could already tell the doors were unlocking and they were slowly reasoning with themselves. It was Sanderson who caved first, throwing an “O.K” sign into the air, an unhappy frown on his face. The others soon joined until North gave a weary sigh.

“Fine Pitch. You have our permission to turn  _ one _ dream to a nightmare.”

“And I gladly accept that,” Pitch gave them a mocking bow. “However I feel I should clarify that it is less a nightmare and more of a sustained fear cycle. The nightmare aspect is that it is maintained through sleep and therefore, the connection and power provided is generated solely for the one who produced the nightmare.”

“Wait wait, that changes things-- you didn’t say anything about putting the kid into a bloody coma!”

“Yes, and this is why I debated saying anything at all.”

“Why do you need that kind of connection?” 

Pitch looked at Jack and rolled his eyes. “In order to fight this sort of Nightmare I need the original power source from which it was created. It will give me the upper hand and I may even be able to return her to her original form.”

“Why would you want to return that thing to its original form? It’s just one more thing that takes away from your power, which you’ve made quite clear is criminal.”

“Do not profess to understand where my lines are drawn, Toothiana.”

“... Fine. But you know we can’t allow you to just use a child as a battery, Pitch. You could put them into a coma-- at the very least they’d be severely traumatized!”

“Oh, the horror.”

“Pitch,” North admonished, “is not funny.”

He chuckled, throwing off the insult he felt in being talked to like a young spirit learning the rules. “Agree to disagree.”

“You aren’t using a child.” The Pooka shook his head, stone-faced.

“Then I suppose you’ll be fine with the continued disappearances of the little whelps-- which I can assure you are either dead or so lost in a sleeping state that even I cannot sense them. In which case, they are probably being used as ‘batteries’ as you are so kindly putting it. But, far be it from me to make you set aside morals for the greater good.” 

“Pitch, that is not fair and you know it--”

“I’ll do it.”

Feet which had been carrying him away and towards the shadows halted and Pitch tilted his head, ear to Jack. “What was that?”

“Use me as the battery.” 

The Guardians must have been looking at him in disbelief because his followup to that was a confused cry of, “ _ What? _ We all know my fear would work just as well-- I mean maybe it would even be better, since this thing went rogue after feeding off Pitch's fear and he’s a lot stronger than any kid. And I can’t die or go into a coma that I can’t get out of or anything-- and we all know I’ve dealt with enough trauma that a little nightmare cycle isn’t gonna do anything.” 

It was a workable angle, one that Pitch was almost embarrassed he hadn’t even considered. A connection to Jack would be twice as powerful as a child now that he was a Guardian… 

A smile crept slowly to his face and Pitch came back over to the boy to grab a hold of him. He was not about to stand there and listen to him try and reason with the others-- he was an immortal being, he didn’t need their permission. If they wanted to catch his Nightmare, Pitch would use the best asset he had. 

“Holding your breath makes it less nauseating,” was the only warning he gave him before propelling them through the shadows, the cutoff shouts of the other Guardians the last thing heard before they resurfaced outside the woods.

“I’m going to kill you!” 

“That’s one way to get out of the Oath.” Pitch released his hold on Jack and let him stumble a moment before his sense of equilibrium returned. 

“Warning one second before you do that is not warning and you know it.”

Pitch shrugged and made a show of peering beyond the treeline so Jack was aware of just how little he cared for his speaking. At least he got that cue.

“So, how do you wanna set this up?”

“We don’t want to battle her in there. She knows the terrain too well, so we would be at a disadvantage. We’ll need the high ground, so I would suggest residential areas. Somewhere I can tether her down and minimize potential encounters with the humans. I would suggest you make a protective casing for yourself to keep out of my way when I subdue her.”

“Wow."

“What?” Pitch wasn’t sure what he expected when he glanced at his counterpart, but the slight awe in blue eyes was not it.

“How can you be so good at planning and so bad at winning?”

He couldn’t tell whether the question was meant as a jab or genuine curiosity. Either way he frowned and went back to surveying the trees-- better that than to focus on the feeling of eyes on him.

“I used to win.”

“During the Dark Ages.”

“Before that, even.” The mere allusion to his days before being Pitch Black made his skin crawl and Pitch veered away from that line of conversation. “But mostly the Dark Ages, yes.”

Jack hummed beside him but said little else. Pitch wondered how much a feat that was for the boy, being quiet. Jack was usually the first one to run with a topic until either it or he was exhausted. At least, as far as he’d been able to observe that was the case.

“Why do you want to keep her-- the Nightmare.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, after everything it's done… why would you keep it?”

“Her,” Pitch corrected. It seemed a trivial part to focus on, but it was important that he not demonize his creation any further by denying it even an identity. “I’m sure you can appreciate the concept of family, Jack.”

“She’s a Nightmare.” He said flatly. “A horse.”

The statement stung more than any cold could have, though he doubted that was Jack’s intention when he spoke. It was a stark reminder of just how much he’d lost throughout his immortal life-- not that he was one to dwell on such things. He had fear, so what else did he truly need? He was feared therefore he was. Simple as that.

And yet, when he opened his mouth to tell Jack as much, what came out refuted it. 

“She’s all I have left.”

What a miserable creature he must have made in Jack’s eyes right about then. Pitch shook his head, ridding himself of both those thoughts and the previous feelings associated with them. 

“Now, if the children’s belief changed her into whatever she is now, then what she craves is not flesh, but the fear inside of it. So drawing her to a more residential area might be for the best. We can do it tonight, when I’m at my strongest. Wouldn’t want to take any chances now.”

“Right.” Pitch could tell from his distracted tone that Jack’s mind was still on the conversation he’d pulled them away from. That was fine, so long as he made no mention of it. 

“Let’s be on, then. I defer to your judgement, seeing as this is one of your haunts more than mine.”

He gestured for Jack to walk ahead of him but found himself more pleased when the boy stayed by his side as they passed unnoticed through the streets. It was midafternoon, giving them plenty of time to find an optimal position before nightfall came. Pitch began formulating how exactly he would link the two of them together and what fears of Jack’s he would prey on when commotion startled the both of them from their comfortable silence.

“No, listen! She just ran off into the woods-- she’s never done that before.”

“Sir, please calm down.”

“I can’t find her. You have to find her! She’s about this tall, she had pigtails in and a yellow dress-- please find her!”

The two of them watched the young father plead with the police officer who had begun speaking into his communications device. Jack’s somber energy picked up as soon as the word ‘woods’ hit his ears. Pitch had a similar reaction and had come closer to the man who was still frantically giving details on his daughter “Deja” that would help the officer locate her. He clung to every word, closing his eyes and drawing on the power of his relic to peer through the shadows inside the woods. Through the darkness he searched every nook and cranny his gaze would reach, keeping lookout for any details the father mentioned. However, given the time of day he was unsurprised when his vision only reached so far and he found nothing to be useful.

Jack was looking at him expectantly, however, not realizing his problem, and he sighed. While enacting the plan now would be less ideal, he supposed it would have to do. He could not allow his Nightmare to continue her rampage if she was going to be so bold as to attack in broad daylight. 

“If you set the nightmare up, do you think the thing will get distracted?” Jack asked, his feet leaving the floor betraying his anxious desire to go searching for her himself.

“It should be a big enough distraction. If the little girl never gets close enough to be hunted, she shouldn’t have a need to be afraid. It will be more difficult to hunt her.”

“What if she does get scared?”

“She won’t, Frost. Believe--”

A scream that startled his keen ears erupted from the trees not far off and Pitch cursed when a new but familiar fear hit him, its scent fresh and easily determinable as Deja’s. Fear of being hunted had a very particular smell. 

He wanted to laugh, more at himself than anything else, because of course she would have found herself in peril right as he had been telling Jack to do something as foolish as ‘believe me.’ An even better question would have been why he’d been saying it at all-- he didn’t care if Jack believed him or not. He was just another Guardian.

“We don’t have time for that now.” 

The plan thoroughly derailed for the moment, Pitch honed in on the location of Deja’s terror and glanced back at Jack long enough to tell him to find an area, to not abandon the plan.

“What about Deja?”

“She’ll be fine!” He snapped, closing his eyes and gripping tightly to his relic. He was not about to lose another child.

“I’ll get her.”


	7. VII

The last time the darkness had bent so completely to his will he had been accompanied by millions of Fearlings. His own vision was lost as he launched himself at impossible speeds through the murky depths of a dimension few had access to, navigating on instinct and very little else. 

He caught sight of the creature before Deja. It’s legs a blur as it tore up great clumps of earth in its pursuit of the girl’s fear. It wasn’t far off, either. Pitch could sense Deja was not more than a few hundred feet off.

“Oh, no you don’t.” 

Rematerializing was as simple as breathing, as was creating the wall of tangled shadows between the child and the creature. A shriek sounded when he did so, a strangled and unholy cacophony of whinnies and several human sounding groans and screams. Even he could not decide where on the scale of discomforts that sound belonged. 

When it phased through the wall Pitch narrowed his eyes. If he had not already been confident that this thing was a twisted version of his Nightmare then that confirmed it. And the creature was fast-- almost as fast as him. Almost.

Pitch growled when it whipped past him, its barbed tail flicking out to lash him. Ducking out of the way was a simple matter, rolling back into his secondary dimension as he did so. It was coming up on her now-- she had tripped and was now curling in on herself at the base of a tree, her thoughts and fear swirling around her like a beacon. In his periphery Pitch could see the creature’s jaws falling open to reveal rows and rows of needle teeth made for skewering and tearing flesh apart. 

_ Please. Please believe…  _

Pitch clenched his teeth when he erupted from behind Deja. Her scream caught in her throat as he wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her in a blanket of darkness just as the air above them cracked as those jaws snapped shut on the spot she had occupied not seconds ago. From the pool of shadow protecting them Pitch watched the creature roar in anger, stamping the ground with claws and hooves before turning tail and streaking away.

It was impossible to tell if the wildly beating heart belonged to him or her. When Pitch finally uncovered them on the outskirts of the woods, he kept a tight hold, pressing her tear soaked face into his chest. Her little hands were balled into fists, gripping his robes deathly tight as her little body was wracked with violent trembles. 

“Shh,” Pitch soothed, rubbing her back in an attempt to calm himself as much as her. 

It dawned on him with every step he took towards town, how very dead Deja would have been had her belief in him been nonexistent. The idea of his little form being twisted and ripped apart inside a vicious maw did not send warmth through him like it might have a millenia ago. Now, now it settled like a rock in his stomach that something of his could have harmed such a little child so profoundly. After all, he’d sworn off the bodily harm of the young ones after the Dark Ages. 

A whimper finally escaped the girl and Pitch shushed her once more. “It’s alright, little one. You’re safe now.”

If she even heard him, she made no indication of it. Distantly he wondered what he must have looked like, a dark figure walking through the foggy streets with a dirtied and cut up crying little girl. He wondered what the Guardians would make of it-- likely nothing virtuous. Hell, they would think he had been the one to put her in such a state.

When he finally came upon the area he last remembered seeing the girl’s father he was immediately bombarded, not by humans, but by a certain chill-inducing spirit. Jack rushed to his side, a pinched relief on his face when he saw that the bundle in his arms was breathing. 

“You got her!” 

Pitch didn’t know why he recoiled when Jack moved to take Deja from him, but he couldn’t deny that he had and held tighter to her in the process. When Jack tilted his head at him he shook his head.

“She’s been traumatized. And you’re… freezing.” 

_ And you are making up excuses in order to hold onto a child.  _ Pitch balked inwardly and cleared his throat. “I’ll see her to her father now, you get back to work.”

Before Jack could protest he walked off at a brisker pace than perhaps strictly necessary both out of embarrassment and determination to see the girl to her safety net. Even he did not know why he held so tightly to her, a child he knew nothing of yet felt so protective of. The locked door in his mind whispered that it wasn’t her fear that made him act so, but her father’s--  _ a fear you understand intimately. _

Pitch shrugged off the notion and as he neared where the adults were talking still he searched for an optimal spot to drop the girl off. But, seeing how tied up in knots the father and officer were, Pitch concluded that a banshee could run past them and they would be hard pressed to notice. With that in mind he reluctantly loosened his hold on the child in his arms and crouched down to let her feet to the ground. The sudden presence of solid concrete beneath her seemed to jar Deja from her terrified trance and she gasped, pushing herself away from his chest to stare up. Her sweet brown eyes were blown wide like dinner plates, the tremble still present in her hands making its way to her lower lip. 

“Who are you?”

Pitch opened his mouth to tell her but paused. It took some effort weighing the pros and cons of telling the truth, but the cons won out in the end because even though it would provide some lovely fear, it would cause her more mental pain. It would be a cheap and cruel move, which he was above in his current state.

With a small sigh he brushed a dirty curl behind her ear. “Nobody.” 

Her eyes pinned him down and Pitch felt like he ought to give her something more than that. However, not knowing exactly what, he opted for the obvious.

“Look there.” He pointed a long finger towards the two men across the street. “He’s been looking for you. Go home.”

She did not need to be told twice. Almost as quickly as her hold disappeared from his robes Deja was across the street, calling for her parent and crying. Pitch stayed only long enough to watch her father’s face sag as relief took over and he scooped the girl up. He could have stayed, heard her firsthand account of what had happened, of why she had gone into the woods, but he held back. There was something sacred about the reunion between a parent and child that would have been rude to listen in on.

Besides that, there were larger problems at hand than a question as to why she had run off. If Pitch had to guess, he would chalk it up to the creature having an ability to give off similar enticing aura similar to his. 

Following the small patches of frost in the dirt, Pitch was surprised to find himself led to the lake. If memory served correctly, it was the same lake which Jack had drowned. Pitch could appreciate the poetry of the choice. Jack had died and risen here and now it was time for him to do something similar-- kill off his last true vestige of power in order to gain access to more. 

When Jack noticed his presence he hopped over to ask how everything with Deja had gone. 

“Fine. Are you ready?”

The entire ritual to set their trap would take a significant amount of time so Pitch wanted to get started as soon as possible. It would’ve been inconvenient to have the preparations dragging into the night because it left a higher chance that the Nightmare would find a new victim and ignore them completely. 

To his credit, Jack had managed to put together his half of things well considering his own stress at Deja’s momentary scare. Pitch eyed the bed of snow piled atop leaves and moss, a tattered brown cloak nearby that he immediately recognized as having the stitching and fabric of earlier centuries. Interesting.

“So…” Jack trailed off, staring between the resting spot he’d made for himself and Pitch. 

“Let’s get started.” Pitch nudged Jack forward with his staff. The boy shot him a short scowl but seemed to understand the intent behind the gesture, as he moved to sit in the little snowdrift. Pitch waited for him to get settled inside the cold powder and wrap the cloak around his shoulders.

“So,” Jack started again, “How do you want to do this?”

“Simple, really.” Pitch smirked, unable or unwilling to hold back on feeling a twinge of excitement at the prospect of giving a Guardian a nightmare. “I put you to sleep using the dust Sanderson so kindly provided and craft for you a terribly gruesome plot that you cannot escape until the creature is dealt with.”

Jack’s cringe helped cut a grin across Pitch’s face. He pat the boy’s shoulder and snickered. “Don’t worry, Jack, I’ll take stellar care of that brain of yours.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

There was a debate going through his mind in the moment following Jack’s silence in which Pitch wondered whether it would be more entertaining to knock him out without warning or if that would upset the Oath. But then he also could not deny that Jack had been shockingly accepting of everything that had been asked of him thus far, and stooping so low for a moment’s laugh would be an insult to both of them.

With that in mind, Pitch cleared his throat while procuring the dream sand he’d tucked into his robes. “Are you ready, then?” 

Jack nodded. “Don’t hold back.”

Pitch couldn’t stop the sharp cackle that bubbled up. “An opportunity to torture you and you think I’d ever hold back?”

There was something satisfying about wielding the dream sand in that next breath to put the boy out before he could retort. As soon as the golden grains touched his eyes Jack collapsed backward with a soft thud. 

“Goodnight, Jack.”

The following seconds saw Pitch taking a moment to appreciate the stillness about the spirit who never stood still. That was his favorite part when popping in on unsuspecting children-- the innocence of their sleeping forms, unaware of the cruel world or the people in it that would see them suffer. Jack was no exception-- no matter how old the boy got, Pitch would never be able to see him as anything but the youth he was stuck as. Besides, in comparison to himself, Jack was an infant. 

And just like an infant, it would be a simple matter to torture him while he slept. Pitch tapped his fingers eagerly across his relic as he closed his eyes and placed a hand into the sand swirling above white hair. The darkness that seeped from his skin and into the dream, corrupting it slowly, was a sight he would never grow tired of watching. 

Crafting a nightmare for the boy was a relatively simple matter; for how much Jack liked to posture about how he’d gotten over his insecurities related to the Guardians and his place amongst them, the truth that Pitch sensed stated otherwise. It was a simple matter, playing off his fears of never being enough. There were, of course, more surface fears like the dread of what would happen should they fail in capturing the creature. The grief and subsequent anxieties revolving around failing so many children so profoundly-- the fear of losing more believers. But those were easy, which meant they were far too weak. 

No, the tastiest fears were those that stemmed from pre-existing anxieties. And Jack had so many to choose from-- calling it a buffet would have been obscene, but… 

But… 

Pitch frowned as he dug beneath the layers of insecurity Jack felt around the Guardians and his nails caught on a tendril that made him pause. It was rare to find a fear he hadn’t already sensed and it was far too tempting to ignore, but when he pulled on the threat Pitch realized it would have been wiser to leave it be. 

Fear of rejection from his band of hopeful idiots was one thing. Fear of rejection from the entity of fear itself was another. He would’ve written it off had it not been right there in black and white for him to read. Pitch wanted to scoff, to throw that bit into Jack’s nightmare as well just to really hurt him, but instead found himself smoothing that particular tendril back into the mass of other issues. He wasn’t completely sure why he didn’t want to add himself to Jack’s nightmare… but it was most certainly a selfish reason.

Instead, he dug further down into the pit that even Jack didn’t touch-- the basement where old fears were left to rot, only to be brought to the surface when one was alone and looking to hurt. 

Pitch plucked up a particularly nasty, guilt-stricken one about Jack’s sister: how she had grown old and died with a guilt that she’d caused the death of her brother. Jack’s own guilt in realizing he had probably passed her a million times in the village and never given her a second glance. What kind of brother didn’t remember his little sister? 

_ A terrible one,  _ Pitch whispered into the nightmare, letting his cruel words marry the sand and create a hellscape for the boy.

With each addition Pitch felt his power growing until it became a steady thrum beneath his fingertips that nearly shadowed what remained in his relic. It was invigorating and had there not been a strict catch and release policy placed upon the situation, Pitch would have been remiss to not at least consider the appeal of keeping the boy around as a “battery” as the others had put it. 

The shuddering breath diverted his attention from those thoughts and Pitch slowly backed out of the depths of Jack’s psyche. 

To say the presence of tears was surprising would have been a lie, but to say Pitch took satisfaction in seeing frozen tracks across pale cheeks would have been one as well. It was an odd sensation, the short tightening in his chest as he took a small step back from Jack. Pitch ignored it, chalking it up to the temperature drop and the newly infused power. 

When a whimper escaped his counterpart Pitch bared his teeth and threw up a wall between himself and the slumbering spirit. He needed to focus and such noises would prevent him from doing so if they continued-- better to avoid them altogether.

And focus he did. Keeping eyes and ears open for any indicators that their plan was working. The terror coming from Jack would’ve been enticing to anyone, but especially those less experienced than himself in ignoring the temptation to devour it. It didn’t take long for a shrill whinny to pierce the air. The thrumming of several limbs clawing the earth, scrambling to reach their target, filled his ears and Pitch gripped his relic tight, drawing upon much of the remaining magic inside. If this creature possessed even half the speed of his Nightmares then he would only have a moment’s preparation before the thing was upon him. 

There was little warning for its sudden appearance save for the rustling of underbrush but Pitch did not flinch when it turned its hateful gaze to him, recognition flaring as much as its nostrils as it pawed the ground with one, two, three, four legs-- although legs was a generous term. For the first time Pitch was able to take a good long look at the beast as they had their standoff. 

It was a simple matter to see why humans would find it terrifying-- anything that ventured into the body horror and uncanny valley usually did. But Pitch decided that only illustrated how small human minds were. What stood before him was nothing less than a marvel.

Everything about her was perfect, from her elongated neck bent at an angle that should have been impossible for a horse, to the limbs that could not decide on being hooves or claws, down to the jaw that was more bone than flesh and contained rows upon rows of spiked and jagged teeth. Of course there was the more problematic element of her midsection, which was clearly engorged, containing what one had to assume were the missing children.

The beast was more nightmarish than the Nightmare it had started as and Pitch couldn’t deny he felt a twinge of pride for his creation.

His smirk ended up being what snapped the Nightmare out of its frozen stance and he huffed when jaws opened around his head. The snapping of teeth was audible even from the pool of shadow he’d melted into and Pitch hummed in appreciation for the aesthetic consistency of strangeness that the creature carried.

When he reemerged and the Nightmare charged him once more he was better prepared to deflect the attack. The crack that echoed off the lake when the crook of the relic met bulbous flesh was satisfying, but Pitch didn’t pause to note the fact. Instead he used the pain caused by the blow as a distraction while securing one of the many legs with shackles made of darkness.

The Nightmare screamed its displeasure in being apprehended. It lunged for him once more and Pitch called forth a whip from his fingertips and wrapped the length of it around the creature’s muzzle. Or rather, tried. As soon as the weapon made contact with the flesh of the Nightmare, it fizzled and sank into the gaps of bone and sand.

With that attack option removed from the roster, Pitch was forced to back up as he formulated a new plan. It seemed that the shadows had remained firmly around the legs they’d been anchored to but were doing little to inhibit its movements. In his gut he knew that once the head was firmly subdued the rest of its body would follow suit. 

There was just the matter of getting a hold of it-- a feat that was made difficult while it thrashed around wildly, its midsection undulating with each ragged breath. 

That was another factor Pitch found interesting. The Nightmare’s movements were erratic, angry, lost and nothing like his Nightmares. The Belief of the children had warped his creation into something that barely seemed to have a will of its own past the hunger for flesh and fear.

The reminder of its purpose gave Pitch pause as the realization of exactly what the creature was doing dawned on him. It wasn’t behaving erratically at all. It was searching, its pulsing eyes zeroing in on the wall of darkness between it and its prey. 

There was a moment of standstill following that. Pitch called upon the remaining vestiges of strength from his relic in time for Jack’s soft cry to break the stillness.

“No!” 

Pitch dove through the wall just as the Nightmare surged forward, its jaw unhinging to scoop up the unsuspecting boy. In that moment Pitch was glad Jack was asleep, because had he been able to witness the manner in which he protected him, crouched low over his slumbering body, Pitch never would have been able to live it down. 

When the Nightmare’s teeth snapped shut, it was not around Guardian’s arm, but the cold rod Pitch held aloft. As an ancient and magical weapon, Pitch knew his relic would be in no harm of damage or breaking. It was that fact which gave him the confidence to wrap tendrils of shadow around the Nightmare’s muzzle, pinning it to the staff and between his hands. 

Pitch immediately stood, dragging the Nightmare’s face down to his level. Its wild eyes popped in and out of their sockets as it pinned its ears back and let loose a muffled shriek. Pitch glared right at it, not yielding when the creature stamped its clawed hooves, nor when it attempted to thrash its head to escape. 

The power of the staff hummed beneath his palms and throughout his body, but with each passing second Pitch could feel it dimming. Soon enough he would be on his own, with only Jack’s nightmare coma feeding him. And if it came to a battle with the boy as the battery, there would be no contest. The children had imbued into the Nightmare a strength that went beyond what he had created. 

There was no choice but to defeat it now.

A rage that had little to do with what had been done to his Nightmare bubbled in his chest until he released a predatory growl through bared teeth. The fact that he was using up the last of his stored power was insulting enough, but the knowledge that as soon as he finished up with the Oath the Guardians would take his relic added to it. It would not have time to recharge before they came for it, of that Pitch was certain. It was a fact that should have made him release the creature, but instead Pitch found himself channeling that fury into the battle of wills he was engaged in.

He had to regain control over what he’d lost a year ago.

The Nightmare refused to yield, pushing and pulling, trying to knock him off his feet. Pitch snarled once more as he called upon more shadows to tie down the remainder of limbs flailing about. 

“Onyx, that’s enough.”

The creature stilled. A shudder passed from it to him and Pitch knew that his instincts had been correct. That particular brand of fear he’d sensed inside of its core when they’d had their first encounter, it was his own-- enough to keep a rogue Nightmare going for months. That was his girl. 

Was. There would be no bringing her back from this. The childrens’ Belief had twisted her into something unrecognizable.

A mixture of pride and grief swirled within his chest and Pitch sighed, allowing his gaze to soften even when Onyx began to struggle once more. Pitch flipped his relic, digging its butt into the ground to free one of his hands, which he placed upon Onyx’s nose. His poor brave girl…

“You deserved better than this.” 

She tried to flinch from his touch, to which he responded by stroking the ridges that made up the bridge of her nose. It was funny, how the Guardians always resorted to violence first to deal with a problem while his instinct was to seek the problem lying beneath the surface in as calm and rational a fashion as possible, and somehow he was the troublemaker.

Slowly he brought his hand to her neck. The skin beneath his fingers rippled as Onyx continued trying to pull free. Pitch shushed her softly as he plunged his hand into her concave chest. As soon as the sticky dampness of the blood-filled cavity registered against his nerves, Pitch could feel the terror Onyx felt as she too sensed her end dawning. Felt her innate need to get to Jack. 

“That one is  _ mine _ ,” he warned while pushing deeper. He could taste the lingering screams of her victims as he clawed closer to where her heart was supposed to be, where he could smell that old musty fear that brought bitter reminders of weakness. 

But he wasn’t weak this time, and when ribs cracked and twisting to stab into his hand he turned them to dust. The base of this beast was his creation, after all-- he had the power this time. He was the master and--

“You  _ will _ yield to me.”

As his fingers wrapped around the trophy they sought Pitch felt the remaining vestiges of that power he’d clung to wither. He had just enough time to rip that sliver of fear from Onyx’s chest before he felt the color drain from his skin and his robes melt away to return him to his weaker form he’d grown used to. 

The sudden weight to his limbs was as unexpected as the dulled vision. Pitch steadied himself against the form in front of him which had gone rigid. It took longer than it should have to register the black goo coating his hands and beginning to trickle into the dirt below. Bits of the Nightmare form sloughed off, landing with sickly squelches that eventually became dull thuds as pieces of bodies joined them. Pitch didn’t need clear sight to know that they were the remains of the children.

Pitch imagined he wasn’t in a much better state than them when his support melted away and he fell, the earth biting his knees. 

“Pitch!”

Jack’s voice filtered in distantly, as if he were hundreds of feet off instead of right beside him. Pitch rolled his eyes at his luck. Of course he’d lost his hold on Jack’s nightmare, and now he’d have to listen to him distressing over the state of the missing children.

The chilly presence showing up by his side without warning was a shock, seeing as Pitch was certain he was the lowest priority on Jack’s list at that moment. However, as the world tilted he couldn’t help but be grateful for the hands that prevented him from landing face first into gore.

As black crept across his vision Pitch swore Jack called for him again, but he was far too tired to care.


	8. VIII

The tang of blood hung thick in the air despite all evidence of it being scrubbed away. It should have added a satisfying element to the whole affair of the day. It didn’t. But it should have, and that was the most frustrating fact of all.

There was a thought swimming in the back of his skull claiming that if he still had his relic it wouldn’t have been such a distraction. Pitch did his best to drown it. It was a moot point. He had awoken from his fainting spell to the sight of Jack’s tear stricken face, the putrid smell of rotting flesh in his nostrils, and a missing staff.

Pitch couldn’t decide where that memory sat.

The way Jack had numbly told him that the Oath was finished, that Pitch could go, had forced any euphoria he should have felt shriveling up to nothing. It was wrong for Jack to look like that-- he’d thought so in Antarctica, he’d thought so then too. So he had stayed. Looking back on it, Pitch didn’t understand himself, but something had kept him there.

At the time he had chalked it up to needing to check for any lingering traces of the Nightmare. He’d known there would be none, he’d destroyed her completely. Thinking about it left a bitter taste in his mouth and Pitch reminded himself that he’d only done it because there had been no getting Onyx back, and he’d been under Oath. 

As Pitch worked to construct a tattered, dull visage of his former robes, he supposed those facts could be used to his advantage one day. An I.O.U with the Guardians perhaps-- or, more accurately, Guardian. Jack would honor that sort of thing, especially after everything Pitch had done in the aftermath of the battle for the boy. It struck him as funny, how even though Frost was an honorary Guardian, he still doesn't label him as such in his own mind. But then, he and Jack didn’t have the same history as the other Guardians-- maybe there was a healthy dose of resentment on both sides, but there was no hate or blood spilled between them. It left a sort of shaky understanding between them, Pitch thought. At the very least, it left them able to tolerate one another… even if Jack was far more emotional.

Pitch thought once more of the state the boy had been in, feet firmly on the ground and hugging his staff to his chest like a security blanket. 

_ His eyes were fixed firmly upon the corpses in the middle of the clearing, darting between the mangled features, perhaps searching for recognizable faces. He’d seen death before in the past, Pitch knew that, but this seemed to hit him differently, riding the low mood the nightmare of his sister had put him in, no doubt.  _

_ It took a moment to get back to his feet, but when Pitch managed it he came to stand at Jack’s side. _

_ Jack tensed but said nothing. From his birds-eye view of his face, Pitch could see tears swimming in guilty vision and he sighed. Preying on his insecurities for the nightmare had been a stroke of genius, but the side effects were never pretty. _

_ “You did what you could. You didn’t fail them.” _

_ “Didn’t I?” _

_ “Don’t be an idiot, Jack.” _

_ He crossed his arms then, ever the petulant one and Pitch only let him have the moment because of that nagging pity he didn’t want to acknowledge. Once upon a time the deaths of so many innocent children would have left him a wreck. Even if he no longer felt the brunt of such encumbering emotions he remembered them well enough to empathize. _

_ “You can go,” he offered, approaching the slop of bodies. “I’ll deal with the mess.” _

_ “I can do it.” _

_ The set look of grim determination fixed upon his pale face did not inspire confidence. Pitch scoffed not in derision but frustration at the inability to accept help. “Nobody is questioning your ability to do it, Frost. I’m merely letting you know it’s not something you need worry yourself with. This is not my first time disposing of bodies.” _

_ “This surprises nobody,” Jack sighed. Then, as if he hadn’t heard a word else of what Pitch had said, he crouched down and began inspecting the remains.  _

_ Pitch waited for the inevitable losing of stomach contents, knowing that while Jack may have been able to look due to some insane stubbornness or misplaced sense of morality, he would not be able to handle it. What was less expected was the sudden sharp intake of breath that sent the air around him dropping several degrees.  _

_ Jack had been in the midst of turning one of the intact bodies over and Pitch had just enough time to notice the minute rise and fall of the little chest before the boy’s bright blue eyes were looking into his, hope of hopes swimming in their depths.  _

_ “You see that too?” _

_ By way of answering Pitch confirmed what Jack couldn’t bear to say aloud. “He’s alive.” _

_ The words imbued Jack with energy which Pitch had thought might’ve been drained from him for good. While he flitted from body to body and gave shouts of relief with each breathing child he found, Pitch knelt beside the first one discovered.  _

_ Blood and grime matted his curly hair but Pitch would’ve guessed it blond for whatever reason. He was small, no older than six if he were pressed to guess, and quite thin. Pitch hazard to think that he may have been one of the initial victims and his survival had been little more than a fluke. His little body shuddered under the gentle abuse of the autumn winds and Pitch leaned over him to draw a blanket of shadows around his mostly still form. The small warmth provided would have to be enough for the time being.  _

_ Straightening up Pitch got an earful from Jack, who had found five other children amidst the dozen or so dead who were still alive. The boy was crying again --trying to hide it, but crying nonetheless-- his hands shaking as they raked through his hair and asked what they were going to do to get them home. _

_ “We cannot return them.” _

_ Jack looked at him like he’d suggested battering and frying the little ones. “We can’t just leave them here!” _

_ “Quite right about that,” Pitch sighed, a plan already formulating in his mind that would be tedious to implement.  _

_ With that thought he put a hand on Jack’s shoulder, drawing on the vestiges of his earlier horror in order to teleport the lot of them back into the wooded area where the last child had been snatched. The memory still sat bitter on his mind but Pitch ignored that for the time being, as more pressing matters took precedent. _

_ “The hell, Pitch?” Jack rounded on him with confusion abound. Pitch rolled his eyes and only told him to round up the living kids.  _

_ “Why?” _

_ “Just do it, Frost.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as an ache began to take up residence behind his eyes.  _

_ Stars, he missed his relic already. _

_ Once Jack had done as directed Pitch stooped down, taking in the creased brows and shallow, rapid breathing. Despite being freed they were still afraid and couldn’t seem to wake. That would work out, at least.  _

_ It was a simple feat to reach into the nightmarish visions playing behind closed eyes and change them just enough that humans would be misdirected towards a more believable narrative. Afterwards the less savory task began. With the newly redirected fears of the living children, forming claws was a simple matter. The half-rotted corpses gave way easily enough to the scratching and tearing, though Jack’s confused interrogating made the task tedious. However, no one would be able to say that the entire scene didn’t look like an animal attack by the time he was finished. _

_ The law enforcement would believe everything had been a secret camping trip gone awry and a wild animal had been disturbed by the children. They would scour the woods for weeks, hungry for blood and vengeance, they would eventually give up when nothing was found and eventually the tragedy would fade into the background. It would be unlikely that children would be allowed to go into the woods without adult supervision again. _

And of course everything had worked out exactly as he’d orchestrated it to thus far. No hunting party had been pulled together as of yet, given that the police were occupied with delivering the bad news to the parents whose children hadn’t made it, as well as keeping a close eye on the children in the hospital who had yet to return from their state of unconsciousness. His fault, but Pitch wasn’t concerned-- they would wake in time… most likely before the week was out.

Not that it was something to occupy his thoughts now. He had helped them and it was over with. He had more pressing matters to deal with, namely: what angle he was going to choose for Halloween that would best replenish his believer pool. With the competition gone and a blanket of grief laid over the town it would be a simple matter to spook passersby, but those were parlor tricks. What he needed was a spectacle, something that would keep the buzz of the night chasing overactive imaginations into the morning hours. 

He entertained the idea of something more cliche-- a whisper into a teenager’s ear about a party by the lake that would spread across the town like wildfire. Then, once everyone was gathered he would teleport them to his lair for a night of monster chases and trauma that eventually ended with everyone returning safely to their rooms, forever questioning if the events of the night had taken place or if it had all been a thrilling nightmare.

It would require some finessing and fear harvesting beforehand to make sure he had the strength to perform without error, but it was a solid plan. 

It was that train of thought which had him heading for the exit of his lair where he just narrowly avoided being bowled over by a certain white-haired nuisance. The glee-tinged order to “catch” registered after he’d already shot an arm out to do just that. 

The familiar weight of his staff left Pitch frowning up at the intruder. Jack shrugged, face split into a smug grin.

“What? We agreed it was only fair to let you look your best on your holiday.”

“‘We’ did, did we?” He was hard pressed to believe the Guardians would ever agree to such a thing. No amount of Jack singing their praises would change that. Some grievances ran too deep.

“Well, the royal ‘we,’” Jack conceded. Pitch snorted, muttering a soft “of course,” that made the boy laugh.

“Look, I think everyone prefers your other look. It’s more… fitting.” If blood still pumped through his veins, Pitch thought Jack would be blushing, no doubt embarrassed to admit there was any version of the Boogeyman that one preferred. To his credit, he recovered seamlessly. “Also, I’m told you can shapeshift, and I wanna see that.”

Pitch dipped his head to hide the smirk that comment brought out and pretended to study the staff. It’s power thrummed against his palms, not as strong as it had initially been, but more than he had expected after such a short recharge period. Taking a deep breath, he let the power flow through him and billow out with his Dark Age robes. 

Jack’s eyes shone and he knew he’d been right when he’d assumed all that time ago that the boy was into theatrics. At least a little bit. They were more alike than anyone wanted to acknowledge. 

“You think you’ll be getting this back?”

“We had Patrick spell it to return once the night’s over.”

“Of course you did.” The fact that he’d managed to wrangle it away from the Guardians for even one night, kiddy gloves or no, was a feat in and of itself that Pitch found himself respecting so much that he couldn’t even be bitter in the moment.

“Just wanted you to have as much power as possible.” Jacks shrugged. “It’ll be more fun that way.”

“What will?”

“The plan.”

“Plan.”

Jack’s expression turned mischievous and he twirled his staff before tapping the crook of it against his shoulder. Pitch flinched away from the touch, ignoring Jack’s eye roll. 

“Yeah, so what is it?”

“What?”

“The plan for tonight.”

The appreciation he felt in being talked to like an imbecile was nonexistent and Pitch narrowed his eyes. “Oh, you want to know, do you?”

Walking away did nothing to deter Jack but Pitch felt better for doing so. The swishing effect the sharp movements had on his clothes did not play into that, of course.

“C’mon Pitch, it can’t be that big of a secret.”

“Maybe it is.”

A gust of freezing wind at his back warned Pitch of Jack’s movements before he sensed them and he had just enough time to stop walking before he could collide with the face suddenly in front of his.

“Tell me anyway.”

Pitch growled, his withering stare boring into big baby blues. Why Jack was attempting to be so chummy with him could mean nothing good. The main assumption he entertained was that he’d been sent by the Guardians to keep an eye on him because everyone knew he couldn’t handle his own holiday after nearly fifteen hundred years. 

The thought infuriated him the more he dwelled on it.

He scoffed at the boy and brushed him aside with shadows. “Do you honestly think that just because we saved a few children we’re suddenly going to be friends?”

“Well… I mean, maybe not friends, but, I thought--”

“You thought wrong, Frost. I don’t do allies or acquaintances, and I certainly don’t do  _ friends _ .”

That ship had sailed. Had it felt good to have someone by his side in spirit when fighting the Nightmare? Sure, why not. Had it been nice being able to verbalize his plans and have someone there to provide feedback? Maybe. Had he felt less alone in his brief time of being tied to an Oath than he had in hundreds of years? Well…

As if reading his mind, Jack nudged him in the shoulder, completely unperturbed by the murderous aura being radiated his way. “Pitch, come on, don’t ruin a good thing. You were having a good time-- I know you were! And anyway--”

“You should see Sanderson about your vivid delusions.”

“Don’t interrupt me!” Jack’s nudging turned into a light punch and Pitch halted in surprise. “And fine, don’t tell me your plans. But I’m gonna follow you around then.”

The brief hope he’d been keeping down snuffed out with those words and he sneered. “Oh, I see what this is. The Guardians sent you to keep an eye on the big bad Boogeyman, is that it? What, are they still afraid I’m going to eat a child? Or perhaps they think I’m going to attack them again.”

“You’re always so dramatic.” Jack snorted. Pitch let the silence drag on, no longer in the mood for banter. He caught on and softly tacked on, “They didn’t send me, Pitch.”

“Then what do you want, Frost?” 

The longer the conversation went on the more conflicted his feelings became and it was as unfamiliar a sensation aas it was an unwelcome one.

“I don’t _ want _ anything. I just thought that maybe you’d have more fun if you had a partner in crime.”

_ Partner in crime… _

Fingernails dug into the bark and scraped violently against the metal inlays of his relic as he tried and failed to sort out what possible motive Jack could have for extending the offer. He came across two probable causes, the first which made no sense considering the boy’s connection to spirits much kinder than he, thus confirming the second in his mind.

“You think I need your help with my own holiday.”

Jack shrugged. “Not at all. I just thought I could help liven it up a little. I’ll bet you were planning some jump scares, maybe a mock-up haunting, creeping some people out and giving kids some bad dreams, huh?”

“I should be insulted that you believe I have so little creativity.”

“Don’t you?”

“Either way I could make it twice as bad. After all, wasn’t it you who said nothing goes better together than cold and dark?”

The mocking impersonation of his likeness that day threatened to make him smile, a fact which he hid by feigning bitterness. “I certainly hope that entire buildup was not to rub salt in my wounds. Because I would forgo scaring brats in order to obliterate you right here and now.”

“Chill out!” Jack laughed, not at all put off by the threat. “I was just saying I could help make people more miserable.”

“Many children are dead, I don’t think they can get much more miserable.”

The grim reminder killed the mirth within the chamber and Jack had the decency to look at the floor in shame. Pitch held no such decency. A dozen emotions flitted across the pale face before him, grief and conflict among the recurring and Pitch wondered what it must be like to feel so comfortable wearing one’s heart upon their sleeve. 

“What happened in the past is better left there, Jack.” His free hand found its way to a slim shoulder and Jack’s eyes locked on it as he continued, “We live through life and death and everything between. This was not the first tragedy you experienced, it will not be the last. You cannot allow yourself to be consumed by it if you hope to continue doing your job.”

He didn’t know why he was trying to offer comfort for something he had already let trickle into the back of his mind past what couldn’t be used to advance Halloween. Jack was a Guardian and that was not going to change in either of their eternal lifetimes. It made no sense that he so often went against his better nature to be kind to the boy. But then, perhaps it did. Cold and dark. Two sides of the same coin. 

“.... would a sudden cold front do anything to enhance your plans?”

Jack’s question was asked through eyelashes as he stared up, fake innocence and real appreciation that Pitch didn’t know what to do with other than ignore.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Well… I don’t know. When you’re not trying to kill the people I care about, I guess you’re not half bad.”

He supposed the banter was better than the heaviness, and if Jack was going to insist on sticking around… 

“Your warm words have touched my heart.”

The deadpan delivery served its purpose and Jack snorted. “You have one of those?”

A razor-thin smile cut through his stony visage. He had to admit to himself… “It would be more entertaining if people had literal chills running down their spine when once everything is in place.”

“Oh c’mon!” Jack whined, “What are you going to do?”

“I suppose you’ll just have to stick around to find out.”

“Heh. Sounds like fun.”

“Not the word I would use, but I suppose so.”

* * *

The night went off with few hitches. The teens were drawn to the mystery and promise of rule breaking like moths to the flame and their screams when the wool was pulled from their eyes as the real fun began were delicious. The added terror that random ice patches, chilling underground winds, and eerie voices a certain Guardian provided were nice bonuses.

Funerals for the children who had been lost were held in the weeks following that night while those who had been rescued were released from the hospital after recovering from bouts of amnesia. As planned, the adults ruled the entire event as a camping trip gone horribly wrong. They had their hunt, found nothing and accepted their losses.

Halloween came and went, as did Thanksgiving, and the whispers of Wendigos died down while talk of a darker figure rose-- one with sharp teeth and cold touch, who was rumored to be preceded by sightings of Jack Frost at times. A figure who some children referred to as the Boogeyman and, a handful more, an Urban Myth, while others still shook it off as a bad dream. Nobody ever complained or wished him away though. It was said that if you believed he could, he would keep the real monsters away. He and his frost-wielding shadow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Metallica for the wonderful lyrics which inspired, not only the title of the story, but the general vibes.
> 
> Drop a comment if you're so inclined and I'll see you guys next update! ;)


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